Seeing Dollar Signs

Posted by on April 7, 2014 No comments

Out for lunch today I saw one of those roadway signs: “100 Signs for $299!!”  I’ve been seeing quite a few of these lately (although I have definitely not seen 100).  It’s made me think of a scam.  I’m not sure of I have a nose for identifying scams or a brain for creating scams.  But anyway, here’s what you do.  And, just for the record, I didn’t think of this until I saw a potential giveaway one day.

So you find someone who will print the signs for $179 (100 of them!!!).  You create the sign to say “100 signs for $199!!!!”  Then you put the signs out in a place where Mr. $179 is not advertising.  You get a call, take the order, then place the order for $179 with your competitor.  You just made $20.  Do that 8 times and everything from there on out is profit.  The signs should last for quite some time and you don’t really have any expenses to keep up.

The only reason I thought of this is one day seeing a sign for $179 on one side of the road and $189 on the other side.  I wondered if the one guy used the other for printing.  And like I said, today, I saw a sign for $299.  That dude’s got some real balls.  He wants his investment back right away.

Blog Checkpoint

Posted by on April 1, 2014 No comments

So, now I’ve been blogging over six years.  And in that six years, I’ve skipped 12 months.  I mean, there’s only 12 month-long periods in that six years where I have not made a post.  It seems to be a pattern of a sort.  A lot of the gaps are due to what’s going on in my work and personal life – if I have time to think for myself.  You know, sometimes you get a long stretch where you can’t think of anything but what you’re working on right then.  Then there’s other times where you want to think about anything but what you’re supposed to be doing.  Hint: This is one of those times.

I have over 200 posts in my blog.  I remember getting an email from WordPress congratulating me on reaching 100 posts.  Maybe I have to get to 1000 for another pat on the back?  The number of posts I’ve made over my blog’s lifespan isn’t a significant number, and there are the gaps I mentioned before, so I guess I wouldn’t classify myself as “prolific”. 

I’ve recently been finding that my tags aren’t sufficient anymore.  Either I’m wanting to discuss different topics now, or I have been applying tags only tenuously to posts that don’t deserve them.  I never wanted my tag cloud to be huge – I always wanted it to look balanced, but it might have to grow out of necessity.

I’m really light on comments, and that’s ok with me.  They say that the best blogs have a strong community and a lot of conversation, but I don’t think that suits my blog.  Mine is just a notepad or journal kind of thing.  I envision my blog as if you the reader are overhearing me at a restaurant bitching about or explaining something about my day or the world or whatever.  And, like that scenario, I’m not exactly expecting you to approach me and comment on what I’m talking about.  But if you find the topic interests you, discuss it with others.  I’m certainly no authority, so you don’t need to clarify or seek guidance on a topic from me.

On blogging itself, there is more and more rabble that the medium is dead.  Short-form messages are “better”, “more concise”, “more timely”, and to me, more bullshit.  One of my favorite tags on my blog is “overpopulation”.  There’s way too many damn people out there.  And because of this, no one can possibly take it all in.  But there’s this expectation that you should take it all in. 

Look, there’s nothing wrong with having a very tight filter on your incoming data.  And you shouldn’t feel bad that you are not absorbing or are missing something.  If you could absorb everything, how boring would your life be?  Every time someone would mention something to you, your answer would be, “yeah, I read about that.”  That also makes it shitty for the other person, too.  That sounds like a great future post: Diversity vs. Unity.  When everyone knows all the same stuff, where does that take us?

In closing, I am still a fan of writing.  I’ve been getting better about proofreading – reading my post in its entirety to make sure it makes sense and has a decent flow.  There’s been plenty of times that I’ve reworked sentences, and when I do, it makes me feel better that I took the time to proof it.  And finally, thanks to you for reading.

Consultancy

Posted by on March 27, 2014 No comments

The recent Dilbert strips have got me thinking abut the concept of consulting.  I think it’s a pretty recent thing, probably since the 90’s?  At least in the tech industry, I think it is.  Maybe it’s always been around for other fields.

Consulting, as the comic depicts, is a lifestyle.  It’s at odds with holding a regular job and has different benefits and drawbacks to working in that capacity.  Personally, I see many more drawbacks, and not just for the consultant.  The consultant’s issues are pretty easy to identify.  I’m just concerned that some things have been allowed to become “the standard” because they’ve been going on so long.

In the first place, businesses have become accepting that they don’t need to retain the talent to have the most advanced “stuff”. (Stuff is an ambiguous term for anything: a process, a piece of hardware or software, a design methodology.)  They think that the most advanced stuff just handles itself.  You just need to set it up.  So you can “rent” the expertise instead of “buying” it.  That’s not how stuff works, and it’s painfully obvious when shit goes wrong.  But this is the way it’s done now.

Because of that point, you can make a summary statement that “consultants don’t make solutions, consultants fix problems.”  Database running slow?  Bring in a consultant.  Need to solve a technical hurdle?  Consultant.  Need to adopt an entire new accounting system?  Consultants!  But consultants leave, and when they do, it’s back on you.  Yeah, it’s great to be on vacation, but you need to come back to work eventually.  So, what if the problem happens again? 

And what makes a consultant so amazing, so important?  Because they’ve helped dozens of other companies with the same problem?  That’s a great breadth of knowledge.  Does it mean the same as a great depth of knowledge?  No.  Can a consultant get a great depth of knowledge?  Not likely, because they are constantly jumping from one flower to the next, pollenating fixes here and there.

Yeah, I’m sure there are good consultants out there.  Ones who will teach and share knowledge while they work; ones that will dig deeper and solve the root cause instead of addressing the symptoms.  But that also depends on what the business is willing to pay for.

I guess it comes back to my first point.  The fact that business (and life as a whole) is so sped up, there is no time (and money) to do things the right way and no time to learn something in its entirety before it is obsolete.  This, along with the idea that there is always something better, which is probably true, but that it is incompatible with older versions, which is simply bad, is leading us into a state of perpetual rebuilding, so that there is never time to actually measure the success we have attained.

It Has Come To Pass

Posted by on March 23, 2014 No comments

So, something I’ve been expecting has finally happened and now I don’t really know what to do about it.

Back in April of last year, I made the decision to use unique passwords for every web site and at the same time, use a unique email address for every web site.  This wasn’t difficult to do, I just made a catch-all email address on my mail server, then started using unique emails on every website.  For example, amazon.com@mydomain.com would indicate to me that the email was from my amazon account registration.

And yesterday, I get a piece of spam from paypal.com@mydomain.com.  How many people have I shared this email with?  Exactly nine.  I don’t make a bunch of purchases via paypal.  So now, I don’t know what to do.  I don’t know exactly who sold off my email address or if they didn’t even sell my email, but their computer was hacked and their address book stolen.  Maybe they use a 3rd party cloud-based POS system and that was hacked.  The bottom line is, I don’t know. 

I’m going to work on the assumption that they were hacked.  Someone got into their EBay account (like they did for me) and mined their recent customer list.  This makes sense because I can’t imagine any of the people I dealt with having a large enough customer list to monetize it for any decent value.

I would love to email each of them and tell them what’s happened.  Someone out there has compromised my personal information.  They wouldn’t be able to do a whole lot of damage, but they probably have a full profile of me: name, address, phone, email.  That sucks.

So now, I have to set up a blacklist on my server for paypal.com@… and create a new email, like paypal.com2@…  That sucks, too.

I’m a Gamer

Posted by on March 21, 2014 No comments

I’m actually the worst kind of gamer, the casual gamer.

On my Windows Phone, I recently installed the Microsoft Solitaire pack and naturally, I’ve been non-productive ever since.  What a stupid game and why must I spend so much time on it, trying to get a “high score”?

And the scoring is the really horrible part.  I mean, yeah, I can finish the game, but maybe I’ve taken too long, or I got distracted and let my timer count up too far so I don’t get crap for a time bonus.  So I abandon the game.  Why?  Like finishing the game just isn’t enough.  I have to finish and get a high score.

One of the interesting quirks I found is that if a finish a game in a decent time, I’m getting a score of something like 3000 or 4000.  However, if the game is shot right off the bat and I run out of moves, I end up with a score like 190.  What stupid scoring model is that?  It’s bad enough you were unable to finish, but not only that, your score is so low, you don’t even want to mention it to anyone.

But anyway, I am really one of the least competitive people I know.  I don’t really see a need for it.  It’s just for bragging rights and what’s the point of bragging?  I gave that crap up a long time ago.  And yet, I challenge myself to get a better score?  Is this going to get to the level where every time I see myself in a mirror I have to point and yell, “Fuck you, I’m going to kick my ass!  In Solitaire.”

Being a Part of “the Part”

Posted by on March 18, 2014 No comments

I’ve noticed an odd parallel between my work dress and my work status.  By status, I mean how I am viewed within the company.  While that may seem somewhat obvious, I don’t think it is.  I’m also saying, I don’t think this path can be shortcut.

When I first started working in a professional capacity, I didn’t know much of anything as far as fashion sense and business sense.  I wore polo shorts, khakis, white socks, and sneakers.  The next job, I changed to dress socks and dress shoes (I think I was counseled on this early in my tenure).  This job was a significant advancement in pay and my responsibilities grew steadily while I was there.

The next couple jobs I wore the same level of attire and my work position was pretty stagnant.  In that time, I learned the fashion importance of a belt, even if I didn’t need one.  I learned about undershirts and how they improve the look of your shirts.

Then with my current job, I eventually ditched khakis and went with jeans every day.  Then I started phasing out polos and wearing dress shirts most every day.  This is when things really started taking off.

Where I work, it’s a relaxed business casual environment.  Jeans are fine every day and no t-shirts, except on Friday, as long as the t-shirt doesn’t have a message (the “no-words rule”).  So, where other places have a casual Friday to offset every day of formality, we have an un-promoted “Tie Tuesday”, to offset the everyday casual.

I participated in Tie Tuesday because I figured, “I have ties and I never wear them except for funerals.”  There’s only a couple other participants in my department.  But, and this is pretty important, people notice.  You’ll hear comments like “oh yeah, it’s tie Tuesday.”  Lately, I’ve been getting direct compliments on my ties or my shirt and tie.

There is a saying: you have to dress the part if you want the part.  I gave this saying some consideration today.  My attire does project a higher-than-average level of confidence and… what’s the term… authority?  When one person in a group of people is noticeably better dressed than the rest, it’s natural to assume that’s the person in charge.  And in my experience, it’s seeming to be true.

The part I’m trying to figure out is if I am dressing to the position I have, or if my dress is taking me to the level I am at.  I am very sure that if I started wearing dress shirts with ties in my earlier jobs, it wouldn’t have made me any better off.  I would look (or maybe feel) geeky and awkward – out of place, even.  This is why I say I don’t think it can be short-circuited.  I think it has to be a gradual refinement over time.

But!  Back to the dressing the part.  I am pretty certain that I would not be where I am now if I was still wearing simple polo shirts and sneakers.  I look at some of my co-workers and think, they’re not dressed for management.  It’s an interesting balance.  If you don’t look the part, no one will take you seriously.  But you can’t just dress the part and instantly be that guy, because you have to be casually noticed, then accepted into that position. 

Even if you’re the leader of a group, wearing business casual, and you come in the next day in a suit, it doesn’t jump you up in stature.  If anything, it makes you look suspect.  You need to evolve.  You need to be almost unnoticeable in your changes.  Then one day, when the executives take you out to lunch because you look like one of them now, you’ll know that you got the part.

Writing About Writing

Posted by on March 13, 2014 No comments

I’ve taken up a new project that I hope I can complete before burning out.  It’s a book.  Not a fiction or story book, it’s an instructional guide on using a financial application.  Holy snore.

I started the document with an outline of what I wanted to instruct on.  Then, because I hadn’t used the application before, I had to figure out how to use it and how to apply it to the specific business I was targeting.  So I started writing a story about a fictional user and performing the actions in the application as the user would have.  I did a story spanning a six-month period presenting different challenges each month and explaining how to address them in the application.  That turned out to be a pretty enjoyable part of the writing.  I guess it was a fiction book after all.

But then, I had to do “the rest”.  It’s a very well-known fault of mine that I am able to work on a project by either making big brush strokes or by focusing on the detail and finishing touches.  I can’t do both.  So in this case, as is most typical of me, I’m painting huge areas of text, and now I need to go over it again and touch up here and there.

Actually, it’s more like I’m putting on multiple coats.  At this point, I’m re-running through the story, capturing screen shots and making sure the instructions are explicit and accurate, so I’m trying to read it from a end-user’s perspective.  Then, I have to fill in the actually reference part of the book, explaining each task in greater detail, without the context of the story.

Then I want to incorporate other financial perspectives from other companies, in case I didn’t think of a certain scenario.  Then I need to get it technically reviewed by a finance person to make sure what I present is correct.  Then I need to create a website to promote it and provide updates and answer questions after the release.  Then I publish it.

I certainly don’t want to get overwhelmed by the amount of work that lies in front of me, even if I do realistically have to know everything that is still to do.

Executive Non-Profits

Posted by on March 7, 2014 No comments

I recently found an article or post saying that the Firefox browser was considering putting ads into its “new tab” page.  Now to read the announcement, you’d think it was a great thing for the user, because when you install a new browser and run it for the first time, clearly you do not know what to do and where to go.  Welcome to 1990.

That lunacy is not the reason I felt compelled to write.  It’s been out of my thoughts for a long time that the Mozilla Foundation, who creates Firefox, is a very large non-profit organization.  It was just kind of in my thoughts that the Firefox team was a very large group of programmers, possibly headed up by some architects.  I envisioned a bunch of great minds working together for a noble cause.  That’s not really how it is.

It’s a company.  It’s a big company.  And there are a lot of people who get paid from this company.  I’ve talked before about how large non-profits are paying people with a lot of other people’s money.  And these people essentially have a perpetual conflict of interest.  Non-profits are typically created to solve a problem.  What happens when you win?  The non-profit isn’t needed anymore.  You’ve put yourself out of a job.

So there’s that part of it, that you’re getting paid to fight a war, but you don’t really want the war to end.  But then there’s the other part, which is, if you’re joining a non-profit, you should believe in the cause, right?  And your experience can further that cause, right?  But what if you have experience, but not the passion?  Then, money talks.

And money seems to be talking pretty well at Mozilla.  The directors of the foundation are doing ok.  $150k+ for a couple of them.  That’s actually pretty much in line with executive pay.  The others?  I mean only three others?  $500k+ each.  That’s kind of ill-proportioned, maybe.  For a non-profit, remember.  This is about a cause.  a cause you can’t begin to put a price on – keeping the Internet free.  I think these three are less about the cause and more about the salary.

Blah, blah, blah.  Big company, big salaries.  But here’s where it ties in with the article I read.  Mozilla hired a new person, brought in at the Vice President level, to use his skill to bring in more money for the organization.  The salary is unknown, but $100k+ is safe to guess.  His idea?  Advertising, under the guise of helping new users.  His job is to create the money to pay himself and all the other executives, because cost-cutting would be backwards.

The revenue for 2012 was in the range of 9 million.  The total salaries were 4 million.  The executive compensation was 2 million.  Nearly a quarter of revenue.  Nearly half of all salaries.

Let me sum this up.  Mozilla is about keeping the Internet free, so that it can’t be manipulated by corporations (never mind the recent failure of net neutrality).  Their solution to losing donation revenue given to them by corporations – primarily Google – is to use advertising by corporations, who will direct/inform/influence users to use the internet that best benefits them.  Anything wrong with that model?

Moving Pictures

Posted by on March 3, 2014 No comments

If there’s one application that I can identify as one of the longest-lived applications I ever used on any computer, it would have to be ACDSee.  This photo viewer, then photo manager, has been installed on every computer I’ve ever had.

Like all software exposed to time, the program started to get too big and tried to do too much.  I tried out different versions, sometimes dropping back to really old versions to avoid the bloat.  Then one day, I had a change of heart and I purchased the newest version.  What a sucker move that was.

So now I had the newest version, with all of its new, sparkly, excessive features.  I also had a nice, shiny new computer, so they played pretty well together.  Then slowly, it didn’t.  The software started getting slow.  It started nagging me to upgrade.  It maintained a link with an online account set up with their website.  It never got any more updates, because the world had moved on to higher version numbers.

Things started to get really out of hand when ACDSee started taking upwards of 15 seconds to open a single image and over a minute to enumerate a couple hundred files on a network drive.  So, in the spirit of my other biggest and bloatedest posts, ACDSee is getting the boot.

So what is its replacement?  I’ve tried a program called Phototheca and it was really nice, but it requires you to work with a local photo store.  It would be great if all your photos were on the local drive, but that’s not my situation.  Then I tried Faststone Image Viewer and I stopped looking.  I’m extremely happy with this application.  It’s almost exactly like the old ACDSee versions – it’s fast and lightweight, but unlike those old versions, it’s made for modern CPUs and OS’s.  What took ACDSee many, many seconds to open, Faststone opened immediately.  The only issue I have with it is the way it handles zoom-clicking in the viewer.  But I’ll adapt.

Oh, it’s also freeware.  It has no online integration, no licensing, no hidden installers during setup, nothing extra.  It’s just good, clean, fast software.  And it’s free.  I always find it odd that nothing is allowed to stop.  It has to keep growing until it collapses under its own weight.  So, goodbye ACDSee, you’ve been replaced with a new version of your older self.

What A Deal

Posted by on February 25, 2014 No comments

Boy, does this piss me off.  Phone/Cable/ISP companies have a pretty bad reputation for ripping people off when they’re not looking.  I was actually kind of pleased with my Verizon FIOS contract, even though somehow the price kept climbing.

So recently, I looked up when my contract was up, so I could drop down to just Internet.  First off, I couldn’t find where to just get Internet.  Everything was a bundle.  But then, as I looked at the bundles, this “deal” hit me:

Capture

Total Monthly Price: $115.  That’s the total.  FOR THE FIRST MONTH ONLY.  How does one month of a 2-year contract equate to a total of anything?  How can they even get away with something like this?  I guess they can because they do divulge the true costs right below.  But still!  Assholes!

And who would want to do customer service for a company like that?  Can you imagine how many calls they get in month 2 and later?  “But you agreed to it, sir.  It is right there under the Total Monthly Price.”  “Yes, have a nice day.  Thank you for choosing Verizon.”