November 5, 2008
SEMA / AAPEX
I am in Las Vegas for the annual SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) AAPEX (Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo) convention. I have attended this show in the past and it is one of my favorite trade shows because it is a mix of automotive, technology, and mobile electronics. More and more new product information is available online, but nothing beats being there. I will be talking to the manufacturers, seeing it with my own eyes, and even getting my greasy paws on it. This year I’m sporting HD Video equipment that I hope (pending show approval) to record many of the show’s highlights with.Preston
President Elect
We have a President Elect. I’m happy that this time there isn’t a major recount going on and I actually know who my next President will be. Agree or disagree, the people have spoken (quite decisively). My day was spent travelling to Las Vegas and when I checked into my room and turned on the TV I heard the news within 30 seconds.My G1 Is Here
I have been holding out on getting a new phone for quite some time now. I have been debating all of the choices, iPhone, Dare, Instinct, Blackberry, and the new player Google. Google? Yes Google. Google’s Android operating system is now available on a new phone from T-Mobile called the G1. It is actually made by HTC (Taiwan) and I expect it will be available through other carriers eventually (it is rumored that the iPhone will soon be available through carriers other than AT&T). HTC is a major player in the Smartphone market and in the past has used Microsoft as their OS provider. I have had my G1 for 1 week now and I quite like it. Stay tuned for details of what I like and don’t like and perhaps some how-to instruction.Preston
April 15, 2006
Google Calendar
By Eric BrowningWhat can I say, Google has done it again. Well it's 98% of what I need for a calendar and about 90% of what a business would need for a calendar. My 2% is that there's a bug on some all day events that cause my Apple iCal program to not show the event. The workaround however is to simply assign it a time. The last 1% of what I need Google Calendar to do is show up with the simple navigation bar in the top left corner of your browser window but in Gmail too.
As far as business go... There is NO CONFLICT CHECKING. WHile we've seen the recent Google beta program to handle corporte email by domain name, the calendar aspect of it however is still pretty simplistic. The best thing about it is that it allows for multiple users subscribing to a calendar to manage and change it's events. This is of course a permissions setting.
It seems as if to only be slightly cliché that Google is the new Novell of web based "groupware".
November 25, 2005
"Screw you (Best Buy, PC Club, Staples) I'm goin' home."
By Eric Browning Hear what I really think about this.This is a big fat middle finger for Best Buy, 'scuse me WORST BUY. Let's see, I was up at the ass crack of dawn, which is 4:30a mountain time. Drove to my local Worst Buy and found 1000 people in line stretching about a block away from the store!!! WTF is this?
You greedy American assholes, it's no wonder the rest of the world hates us! All I'm trying to do is buy the one fucking $129 camera so I can take pics of my new niece, nephew and soon to be niece/nephew and you freaks have to stand out in 28ºF weather all fucking night. You people make me sick! Best Buy makes me even sicker, I drove to three of their stores (and about 30 miles) and ALL of them had that monster line and people everywhere, and I did all of this before 5am and NO CAMERAS!
I think there should be a law that says if you can't provide at least a quantity of 1000 units of a "Black Friday" Item then you can't advertise it. So this is a big fat FU Best Buy and to your lame ass stock suppliers. I'm never shopping there again!
UPDATE: Just visited Staples and PC Club, both of whom are advertising pretty good deals on a 512MB SD memory card. But I should have guessed it, they've only stocked about a dozen of them, they won't do rain checks and the whole point of their game is to UPSELL. PC Club said, oh here this is a better card, and BTW it's $40 not the $15 (after rebate) one we advertised. Staples didn't even have an alternative brand, the schmuck of a sales twit tried to upsell me to a gig SD card for $90. Bullshit!
I'll just quit bothering with local retailers all together and do all my shopping online. Lets see what that does for sales tax revenues, the more of us shop online the more we can tell the states that we don't like how almost every retailer is treating the consumer with vapor-tising great deals that they don't stock. It's misleading and a typical Bait 'n switch tactic. I will do no business with retailers who can't bother to stock up BEFORE black friday.
November 20, 2005
More practical uses for hydrogen
By Eric BrowningSorry if this is a little off topic of computer technology, but in today's high gas prices this is a very innovative solution to help make things a little better.
If big rig truckers can use hydrogen to reduce their fuel consumption then this innovative hydrogen technology could be used to increase fuel efficiency of jets.
As we all know when the price of gas goes up, everything goes up. What's weird is that jet fuel and diesel, two of the leastly refined fuels out there should be lower in cost than highly refined automotive gasoline. I can't speak for big oil companies thinking on their pricing schemes, other than they stand to make a buck no matter what.
The Wired article linked above has a quote claiming that trucks using the new hydrogen technology called Hydrogen Fuel Injection can save $700/month/truck. Yes, that does add up to quite a bit, and that's just on trucks, imagine how much fuel a jet uses. This technology yields more power, and a cleaner burn from the less refined fuel, and less black smoke, by injecting hydrogen made via electrolysis from onboard water tanks and injecting it into the air intake of the engines.
So in what is always a battle between airlines and cost cutting measures that sacrifice their employees benefits, why not help everyone and use a more efficient fuel system.
November 19, 2005
Internet style advertising on broadcast TV
By Eric BrowningAlrighty, I'm fed up with the newest advertising techniques by broadcasters. I'm watching taped episodes of "Las Vegas" and "Medium" from Monday November 14th and low and behold characters and movies in the shows are appearing as commercials in the next break.
Now I can understand cameos and such but out right plugs for new movies and live shows in the middle of my entertainment is downright annoying. This is just like advertising on the Internet, it's targeted based on what you are viewing. It may work for Google, but it's not going to work for the networks. I find this the lowest form of corporate whoring currently being exhibited today.
October 31, 2005
Apple's Failing Enterprise Initiative
By Eric BrowningAn open letter to Apple Corporate,
Do you know why you are failing to attract serious enterprise customers? Because you give your ernterprise hardware consumer level factory warranty. Case in point, an $7,000 RAID with six drives where three of them have failed in the last 17 months. To me this says that there indeed is a BIG problem with the drives in this unit, but because it's out of warrany screw you.
I have an old Starmax clone who's 2.1GB HD still works, and about a 100 revision A-D "tray" iMacs where most of their original 6GB drives are still working great. Believe me I'd love to replace those old machines, and yes on occasion the last year or so their drives have been failing too.
What I don't understand is why Apple is so damn difficult on supporting crap they make. It seems like anymore that you have to sue Apple to get a response to manufacturing defects.
When half of my brand new product fails in 17 months it IS a problem, whether or not Apple believes it is and it must be corrected in good faith in order to attract serious enterprise customers. Instead I get a revolving blame game where I get quoted by Apple reps, "Apple didn't make those hard drives", well yes Apple didn't make them, Hitachi did, BUT APPLE SELLS THEM! I don't care that they missed the fact that this batch of drives has issues, all I want is my HD replaced.
When my next round of upgrades is due, and in my own small business, I'll be sure to NOT use Apple products for running the business. Especially their ill supported enterprise hardware. Dell has been bending over backwards to accomodate us and is always willing to admit that, "Yes, we send out the wrong cable for that $4,000 LTO-3 drive you just bought, here's the cable you really want, no charge."
I rest my case, Apple support your products or go the way of the Comodore 64.
August 7, 2005
FBI overstepping bounds because DHS is lacking
By EricWell once again the FBI is trying to take up the slack for the DHS. In many recent news articles this week the FBI is attempting to gain privileges to snoop on airborne passengers wireless Internet activities (FBI Flight Plans Hit Turbulence).
If the FBI is attempting to go this far into the flying branches of the Internet then the DHS is obviously not able to keep terrorists off of our planes. The FBI seems to think that terrorists will use the flying Internet to coordinate their attacks wither on the same plane or on other planes. If the DHS was doing its job correctly, along with the Border Patrol and related border enforcing agencies, we'd know who was where and when they were there. I'm speaking of foreign visitors who roam basically unchecked throughout our country.
All green cards, HB-1 Visa and any other temporary permit for residing in this country needs to be secured and enforced. Either by RFID tags in them or dare I say it a national ID system. Unfortunately with all of these schemes it's only a matter of time before they can be circumvented. Our government’s problem is that it will spend a few hundred million every few decades to throw out the old way of doing things only to come up with a newer convoluted method. With something like RFID one could change the codes or encryption scheme as well as any physical marks like holograms and such on a regular/random basis to attempt to keep ahead of counterfeiters. This would require minimal hassle on gov't IT departments to replace hardware where they could instead replace software in the system, changing the keys in the lock so to speak.
I think this will most definitely help the U.S. track foreigners as to their activities. Their temporary passport needs to be read every time they interact with a government agency (DMV, SS, Police, etc.) as well as restricted private infrastructure such as public/private transportation infrastructure and industries where materials are sold for a separate purpose could be used to make weapons, like the hundreds of pounds of fertilizer used in the Oklahoma City federal building bombing. In addition to that no foreigner should be allowed to purchase any firearm what so ever, they are a visitor not a citizen and therefore our constitution should not grant them that privilege.
Now I realize that a section pipe from a hardware store could be used in a pipe bomb so only those materials that pose the greatest risk should be kept under closer guard. We already do a pretty good gob of IDing for cigarettes and alcohol, but keeping terrorists off of planes apparently is too much for our country to come up with a solution.
July 29, 2005
Support Pete Ashdown for the US Senate in 2006 for Utah
By EricI feel obligated to help out a friend running for the US Senate in 2006, his name is Pete Ashdown. Yes he is going up against Hatch, yes I'm aware that Hatch has been in the Senate forever, and yes I know that Utah has traditionally been a republican state.
I would like to point out though that Pete is quite moderate in his views. Now the hard liners on either side would say that he should run as an independent. He's a family man with family values but believes the private healthcare system is out of control, just ask him on one of his Thursday night online chats about how much he is forking out for Xmission employees. He believes that a woman's right to an abortion is between her, her God, and her doctor, please pay attention to that order.
Most republicans would rather strip away your right to choose in the name of religion which has drastically reduced the separation of church and state in this country. Tolerance is eroding and paranoia runs rampant in the Department of Homeland Security. Instead of fixing our problems the government is instead making more and more laws to limit our freedom, how we travel, who can drive, how many business they'll bail out instead of holding those businesses responsible, and for holding the various government departments (medicare/social security/border patrol/FBI/CIA/NSA/ and the tight ass FCC) responsible for their failings to fix the issues that are now about to cripple our great nation.
Did I mention that he started and maintains a prospering private business. Xmission has been Pete's passion since the dawn of the Internet. Xmission is an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and definitely the finest one in the Salt Lake valley. He staunchly believes in privacy and is against government intrusion in private civilian lives, and he runs Xmission that way too. Pete has personally told me that he would rather shut down Xmission than let the FBI install the now defunct Carnivore email snooping computer systems into Xmission.
Xmission's profits are rolled back into supporting the Xmission staff well and right back into the infrastructure that keeps it all going instead of the typical business scenario where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer because they don't provide living wages to their employees. Xmission even donates free web hosting to non-profit organizations and sponsors many diverse events around the valley. Pete cares about his staff and their well being and he is greatly motivated to help the rest of us out too.
These kind of morals and business savvy are what make Pete the best pick for the US Senate in 2006. We need a voice in the senate who understands modern technology and is in touch with real everyday people and can make educated decisions that best represent us.
Visit Pete on his site at PeteAshdown.org. You can contribute money (the easy way out) or with your skills.
Both are invaluable to running a successful campaign.
Thanks for your time :-)
