The Violence Worker!

That Was Tedious

As long time readers know, I travel from time to time.  My job has taken me to a few exotic locals and some more mundane destinations.  My last trip was to the Land Down Under and Brisbane this past February. 

I'm scheduled (You never are really sure your going until you are on the airplane) for a trip of several weeks to some place which I choose not to disclose for a variety of reasons.  It's not classified, but I think its best some things are not usually discussed in public untill I'm on my way.

In anticipation of this trip, I bought a shiny new Hewlett-Packard G70 series Laptop.  It's not a powerhouse, but it's more than adequate for my traveling needs.  When I'm not traveling, it will be the wife's computer.  It's set up with all she needs for email, word processing and web surfing.

Setting up Norton was a pain and took over an hour.  Since my subscription is good for three computers, I added it to the new one.  It got stuck in a loop, removing the trial Nortion and installing the new.  Needless to say, I was connected to tech support most of that hour as some guy from India wondered through my registry and downloading this tool and that.  Suffice to say, he finally got it going and my new baby is secure.  

Add to that, it was probably approaching 100 degrees in my kitchen where I was working.  Oy!

Anyway, it's done.

VW

Why Newspapers Are Almost Obsolete

I've read in a couple of places that one reason newspapers, even big papers like the New York Times and the Seattle Post-Intellegencer, are on the ropes is the lack of classified ad revenue.  Classified ads are cash cows for newspapers but classified ads are in steep decline these days.  They usually require very little space and labor is usually not that intensive to publish them. 

Before the advent of the Internet, the cost of placing a classified ad was very affordable.  I've placed a few of ads over the years and the cost was usually fairly reasonable.  I think the last one I placed was in the late 80's and it cost me like 11 dollars for a seven day run.  I forget what it was for, but I did get results. 

For some people, perusing the classifieds in the daily paper was an art form.  They would pour over the ads like a bookie studying the Daily Racing Form looking for a winning nag.  They would find untold treasures hiding in all of that small print.  That was then, now we have the internet and people comb through Internet sites like Craig's List to find their bargain.  With very little money (compared to buying a printing press and hiring a huge staff to print and distribute), you could put up a web page that would allow people to place their own ads for free or very little cost such as Craig's List.  Once people realized they could place an ad that was either inexpensive or even free, newspapers started losing some serious money.

It took awhile for it to really start to concern the Newspapers because most newspapers had a healthy circulation rate and a wider readership than the internet.  Not so, today.  With the Internet, the news cycle shifted into a 24 hour full-on run.  "Cycle" no longer even applies.  Newspapers are full of yesterday's news.  By the time the newspaper printed the news and it landed on your doorstep or the newsstand, it's already been dissected, analyzed and digested by almost everyone.  Add to that, you can then read any number of blogs to get it even further reduced and refined and the newspaper's take is essentially irrelevant.

It also doesn't help that they've managed to alienate anyone in their readership that is further right than Josef Stalin.  That doesn't help circulation either

So classified ads are down, circulation is slumping and costs for everything are up.  It doesn't take a financial genius to understand that a tiny print ad costing 25 dollars or more for three days is rather pricey compared to free on Craig's List.  If you want to sell your house in the newspaper, you can get 3 lines of text for ONE DAY in both the Seattle P-I and Times for the paltry sum of 84 Dollars.  You read correctly.  $84 dollars a day will get you a one day print ad.  It does include a 7 days of online placement.  Such a deal!  Run that ad for a month and it starts to eat into the profit really fast.

The Seattle P-I is on the block and I suspect that by April, it will cease to function as a print entity.  It's just a matter of time before others start to fall, including the Gray Lady herself. We might not like the idea that newspapers are going the way of the horse and buggy, but it will happen.  As the car edged out the horse, so the internet is edging out the print media.

Many newspapers will undoubtedly try and remake themselves digitally, but I suspect that even that will only succeed in prolonging the inevitable in most cases.  If they already have a strong web presence, they may have a chance.

I do think it's kind of sad in a way.  I used to love getting up on a Sunday and spreading the paper out all over the table, perusing over the news, the editorials and of course, the color comics.  Now, The color comics are small enough that I need a magnifying glass on top of my reading glasses and instead of about eight or ten pages, it's reduced to one sheet. 

It's not worth reading anymore. 

VW

Burp!

I love my computer.  I admit, I'm addicted.  It pains me not to able to access the news and all of the blogs I follow and I keep dozens of news sources and blogs in my news reader.  I used to use Omea Reader but it was somewhat unstable and used more resources than I thought necessary. 

I heard about another reader called RSS Owl.  It was a Java based app and I've been using it for these past few months.  I've been very happy with RSS Owl.  It doesn't use a loy of resources and it does exactly what I need.  My only complaint is that it occasionally wants to load Internet Explorer even though Firefox is my default browser.  I can live with that.

Yesterday, I found a way to make the game I was playing completely hang Vista.  Since I know what I did, I won't do that anymore! Stuff happens.  I was also dumb enough to keep RSS Owl running in the back ground.  When the game burped, it somehow caused the database kept by RSS owl with all of my newsfeeds to become corrupted.  Arrrrggghhh!!!  Re-installing the app did no good because it kept reading the same database. 

I hunted down the corrupted file and eliminated it and reinstalled the program.  I now must go through and painstakingly rebuild my blog feeds and news feeds from memory.  Now that I know where RSS Owl keeps it's database, I will also make sure I back up that info. 

One of my favorite bloggers, Bloviating Zeppelin, just got a new Mac and is now learning the ways of Apple.  Apparently his wife took great pity upon his PC frustrations and bought him a Mac for HER birthday. 

Years ago, I was an Amiga guy.  I loved my Amiga 500.  Anyway, sometime back in 1992, I bought a used PC and I've been using them ever since,  When I went to buy this computer almost two years ago, I looked at the Macs.  All of my stuff was for PC's and aside from the cost of the new system, I would have to get Mac versions of some programs (if available) that I could not live with out.  I decided to get the PC. 

Well, unless someone decides to buy me a Mac and (it won't be my wife, that's for sure!), I, I guess I'll be a PC guy for the forseeable future - despite the burps.

Back to rebuilding the database.

VW

Firefox Vs. Chrome

For the past several days, I've been using Google's Chrome browser.  It's very similar to the Safari browser; they use the same engine.

Chrome is quick.  I think it is probably faster than Firefox, but speed isn't exactly the only criterion in which to judge a browser.  I like my bookmarks displayed on the left.  I do more than just blog or read the news.  I have an RSS reader that takes care of most of that anyway and blogging can even be done from one of my Firefox extensions. 

I tried hard to like Chrome, sticking with it for as long as I did, but in the end, I'm back to Firefox.

VW

I Don't Believe Them!

There is a few people in Santa Fe that say they are allergic to Wi-Fi signals.  I don't believe them.  If there is a problem, it's in their heads.

A group in Santa Fe says the city is discriminating against them because they say that they're allergic to the wireless Internet signal. And now they want Wi-Fi banned from public buildings.

Arthur Firstenberg says he is highly sensitive to certain types of electric fields, including wireless Internet and cell phones.

"I get chest pain and it doesn't go away right away," he said.

Firstenberg and dozens of other electro-sensitive people in Santa Fe claim that putting up Wi-Fi in public places is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Electro-sensitive?  I ain't buying it.  I'm sure they think they are and I'm sure they actually feel something, but I think it's coming from inside their skulls rather than the outside.

Let me tell you a true story:

Back when I was a kid, we moved out into a rural area.  My Dad serviced police radios.  He work for the city of Pontiac Michigan full time, but he also had contracts with some surrounding small communities.  He built a little shop down in the basement so he could do his contract work and because he needed to be able to test the radios, he needed to construct a tower tall enough to get out of our little valley. 

Dad had a problem.  He knew if he put up a tower with an antenna on it, someone would complain about it interfering with their TV.  Ah, but the wily Old Buffalo had a plan.  He knew how to nip that little problem in the bud.

He put up the tower beside the house and did nothing but ground it.  It was just a plain old steel tower with no antenna or radio attached to it and he left it there for awhile.  It didn't take long.  A neighbor came by one evening and told Dad he was having TV reception problems.  Now keep in mind that this was back when people relied on a TV antenna on their roof for TV and it was subject to interference from strong radio signals close by.  Cable and satellite TV were concepts, not reality.

Dad took the old guy over to the tower and explained it couldn't be him.  He showed the guy there was nothing on that tower.  No wires, no antenna.  The neighbor decided if he was having problem, it couldn't be from us.

A little while later, Dad connected the antenna to the tower and never had a complaint.

The truth is, if our neighbor had a problem, it was most likely his perception, not his reception and I'm thinking this is the problem with these people in Sante Fe

I don't believe these people are that sensitive.

Wrap'em in a Faraday cage, that'll fix the problem.

VW

Spam With Your Quechup?

Like many of you, I've received my share of invitations to join Quechup.  Quechup (a cutesy way of saying  catch up without annoying the condiment industry, I suppose) is apparently another in a long line of so-called social networking sites. 

I have nothing against most of these sights.  I'm on My Space and on Face Book as "Vee Worker". Face Book didn't consider Violence to be a proper first name when I registered so I had to modify it a bit.

Quechup is different.  The sight asks you to let it scan for possible friends from your gmail or outlook contact list like the others.  The difference is, Quechup, without your permission, email's an invitation to every one in your address book -- and they don't ask or tell you.

If you registered with Quechup, unregister.  Whatever you do, don't give them access to your address book!

VW

Dell

Dell catches a bit of flack now and then, but I gotta tell ya, I've had some pretty good experiences with them. I've bought three computers, a thumb drive,a 256 MB memory stick and a video card from them.  Right after Christmas, I ordered a Sansa  c250 2GB MP3 player.  It came last Thursday.  I opened the box and loaded it up with some songs and applied the head sets.   The earphone jack  wasn't working correctly.  Only one side was coming through.  I checked with another set of earphones and got the same result. 

I called Dell and asked for a replacement.  No hassle, no heartburn. They apologized and said another one would be shipped NLT January 11th.  IT CAME TODAY!  They were supposed to include shipping instructions and a prepaid shipping label. They didn't, but what the heck, I'll email them and get them to send it to me.

They kept my business.

I plan on ordering a replacement for this old clunker computer in a couple of months.  I built it over 4 years ago.  I've upgraded it a bit here and there, but it is showing its age.

Yep, I'll buy from Dell.

VW

Time's Person Of The Year is You, and You, and You, and You...

Essentially,according to this, TIME took the easy way out.

"If you choose an individual, you have to justify how that person affected millions of people," said Richard Stengel, who took over as Time's managing editor earlier this year. "But if you choose millions of people, you don't have to justify it to anyone."

My guess is they considered several options. Any of them were certain to win them a bunch of subscription cancellations if they went with an individual or group such as Kim Jong Il, the Pope, "The troika of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.", or Ahmadinejad. As a matter of fact, in the article, Mr. Stengel said that Ahm-a-nut-job was their choice for an individual award. He said "it felt a little off" to pick  him.  He probably knew it would also result in a round of cancellations and they are usually a bit hard to recover from these days.  I've subscribed to TIME in the past.  I doubt that would have moved me to unsubscribe, but I guess some folks think it should always go their way.  They probably learned that lesson when they did the "Person of the Century" or was it "Millennium"?  I don't remember.  So much has happened since then.  The cynic in me says they chose everyone in hopes that we would all rush out and buy a copy. 

I suppose, in kind of a left-handed way, TIME is acknowledging that the print media is slowly losing ground to alternative sources.  We are no longer dependent upon TIME for their weekly analysis or to the NYT as the "Newspaper of Record".  We no longer look to the the Network News Anchor as the oracles of current events that they once were.  Instead of the scrutiny of a few hired fact checkers, we now have millions of eyes looking over their shoulders.  Just ask Dan Rather.

So if I were to pick the "Person of the Year", given TIME's usual criterion that it be someone who shaped the events of the year - good or bad, who would I pick?  I honestly don't know.  Ahmadinejad would be a candidate, as well as President Bush.  Even from a non-economical stand point (I have no money to lose, regardless of who I pick), it would be a difficult choice.

I tend to think it's quite presumptuous to pick any one person when so many things are happening outside that one person's sphere.  There are other major events going on in the world.  We don't know what small spark might set off cataclysmic events.  An example would be the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand that essentially set off two world wars.  I'm sure that TIME would never have picked the likes of Gavril Princip whose bullet felled Ferdinand.  Yet that one shot triggered events that no one could have predicted and seriously affected the rest of the century. 

I suppose, in the end, I'd have to say there is no clear winner, but Ahmadinejad probably comes closest.  You may think otherwise.  Feel free to tell me who YOU think should have won. 

After all, the TIME article tagline is:

"Yes, you control the information age.  Welcome to your world."

VW

The Left Hates Free Speech!

Are these the type of people we want running the country?  I've said repeatedly that the left is against free speech.  The left supresses opposing views by any means at their disposal. 

An anti-abortion protest at the University of Washington the other day was met with comments like this:

"I think it's absurd that they're here," said Grant Mandarino, 25, who is working on a graduate degree in comparative literature. "These people are not wanted. This is a pro-choice campus, and there isn't a place for them here."

His fury was moderate compared with the reception Show The Truth has received on other Washington campuses. At The Evergreen State College in Olympia, young people spray-painted and punctured their signs, scrawling "Sick lies, lies, lies" over a poster showing a bloody fetus, its head caught in forceps and, apparently, screaming.

I don't agree with the methods of these anti-abortion types. I think it's way over the top, but still, they have their right to show their message as long as they aren't hurting anyone or bothering anyone more than offering a pamphlet. 

And if that isn't enough, the left is attempting to manipulate Google so that if you search for a Republican candisate, your first choices will be to articles portraying them in some negative fashion.

From the NYT:

If things go as planned for liberal bloggers in the next few weeks, searching Google for “Jon Kyl,” the Republican senator from Arizona now running for re-election, will produce high among the returns a link to an April 13 article from The Phoenix New Times, an alternative weekly.

Mr. Kyl “has spent his time in Washington kowtowing to the Bush administration and the radical right,” the article suggests, “very often to the detriment of Arizonans.”

They are trying to unfairly influence what you see.  However, the guy who is behind this scheme says it should be the practice of all campaigns.  In other words, they all should try to cheat.

But Mr. Bowers suggested that he was acting with complete transparency and said he hoped political campaigns would take up the tactic, which he called “search engine optimization,” as a standard part of their arsenal.

“I did this out in the open using my real name, using my own Web site,” he said. “There’s no hidden agenda. One of the reasons for this is to show that campaigns should be doing this on their own.”

Indeed, if all campaigns were doing it, the playing field might well be leveled.

Mr. Bowers said he did not believe the practice would actually deceive most Internet users.

“I think Internet users are very smart and most are aware of what a Google bomb is,” he said, “and they will be aware that results can be massaged a bit.”

If that is the case, the why do it?  You know why! It is an attempt to deceive.  Mr. Bowers might be up front about it, but it is deception none the less.

Free Speech?  Not from the left.

VW

ADMIN NOTE

STICKY POST FOR AWHILE...SCROLL DOWN FOR NEW POSTS

I've turned on the CAPTCHA feature for comments.  I don't get a lot of spam, but I do get spammed occasionally.  The problem is when I get it, it comes in batches.  I have to clean out sometimes a dozen or more.

I know it's annoying,  I hate typing in those often hard to distinguish letters into the box, but I know it helps out the blogger.

Your other choice is to use a Type Key registration that will allow you to post comments without the CAPTCHA feature.

I've decided to do it this way to give you a choice.  Some folks don't want to register with TypeKey.

Anyway, your understanding is appreciated.

VW