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Terry Howard Orlando, Florida |
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Recent Posts
- More Lame Biz Stock
- Lame Biz stock
- Full Sail University
- Trailer for Sale
- Colleges on University Blvd? WTF?!?!
- Hillary, The Problem is YOU!
- Pimping Your Ignorance
- Reporters Fail At Reporting
- Man Up America!
- Nuttin' But Stringz
Links
- Central Florida Fishing Report
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- Country Mouse, Mickey Mouse
- Jfrogthepoliblog
- Lamonte the Cat
- Metroblogging Orlando
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Archives
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Coming Soon |
Posted by Terry Howard @ 8/31/2006 
But you know, some people just aren't convinced of the effectiveness of the internet, who are these mysterious bloggers anyway, if that is their real names. Quite frankly it sounds made up to me. But what did really shock me was this website for Linda Stewart, the incumbent. Coming Soon? When? After the elections? It's September already in another day!
The little link at the bottom says "Site Designed and maintained by SAMandNATE.com", which I'm not sure if it's legit to claim this since the site has neither been designed nor is being maintained in any form. This design house has a flash site that uses the same inane triple-colon-before-&-after-the-title-tag as Linda's site. Here's a free tip, guys, from an SEO professional: Putting "three colons" as the first thing in your title tag is like optimizing to rank for "three assholes". When looking at Stewart's profile she has a son named Sam, I wonder if he is the Sam in Sam and Nate. If that's the case, then man, go get your mom's campaign site up, she is going to need it if she keeps ignoring Conway's crime and I have to keep railing her about it between now and election time.
I'm only partially joking, I make part of my living from critiquing sites and campaigns, so it's a hard habit to break. But seriously Sam, get your mom's site up!
Internet Radio Rules |
Posted by Terry Howard @ 8/30/2006
I just came across a new golden nugget while perusing the iTunes radio tuner: Radio DavidByrne.com. The description in the MP3 stream tries to say these are songs in the prolific Talking Heads front man's personal playlist, but the site indicates these are recent releases for his label. Either way this is one awesome collection of really eclectic and top notch tunes. There's a little funk, a little latin, a little electronica, even some hip hop for good measure. It's really great to hear music you've never heard before too! Check it out.
I can't wait until I can tune my car into these stations through WiFi or something.
"The Cell" |
Posted by Terry Howard @ 8/28/2006
Plus, you don't pay for the time you use the service, just for the amount of data you send and receive. Out of bucket usage billed at $0.01 / kb.
Oh really? Can I please pay for just the amount of data I send and receive? I really hate not having the hassle of wondering whether I can load a particular site because I'm close to my kb limit! Yes, calculating my internet use daily to avoid getting screwed over by highly ramped up overage fees is exactly what I've been looking for! This is your cell company saying, "We think you're an idiot, and we want to take advantage of that as much as possible!" And hey, that's their right to exploit under capitalism. However, it's also the consumers right to slap that stuff down by not buying these garbage rates and recognizing their blatantly out of whack pricing.
To put that in perspective, the famously sparse Google search homepage, nothing but an html file and 2 graphics is 11 MB to load. That's 11 cents to just load Google if you were over your monthly limit, which you would be if you had any plan but the unlimited. Think how much loading a search result would cost you, or a single result in that list!
So under the most basic 1MB a month plan, loading Google would cost you the $5 plus 10 MB in overages, or $5.10. Using the 5MB mid range plan would mean you get to pay $15.06! Hmm, looks like the value is going the wrong way! So the mid range plan really just ensures nothing but the phone company will at least get $15 extra out of you each month as you get to look at, what, a few WAP mobiles pages before you're maxed? Heck, a couple ring tones would finish that off. There is nothing "service" about that service plan.
So this brings us to the UNLIMITED plan! What could be better than unlimited access, why even bother with those other plans, you actually use the internet, those other plans are for idiots and dullards who don't know how to deal with technical things. So it's time to step up to this awesome plan! Your choices are the basic $20 a month or $30 a month depending on how many text message you want to receive.
Why do you need text messages? You've got AIM and email built right into your phone, right? Well, how are you going to get the phone companies text message ads? You obviously need this feature and if you run out we'll only charge you 10 CENTS per text message. The text message, by the way, is limited in how long it can be, 140 characters to be exact. 140 bytes for 10 cents on text messages or 1024 bytes for 1 cent online, that's a 7 to 512 advantage with online data over text messages. And note that I specifically asked to never receive text messages, I did not want to receive them on my phone but I was told this was not a feature they could block. I could either pay for a bulk amount of text messages I won't use once or be charged 10 cents for every time someone decided to text me, whether I wanted or asked for the feature or not.
So what do you get for $20, the minimum unlimited plan? I tried earnestly to get average numbers for speeds, but I found that searching Google for anything that has anything to do with cell phones is like asking to be served up every spam page every created. My cell service's site flat out ignores that question, as if "how fast is it?" isn't a frequently asked question. So, I can only go by my own previously experience, which is slow, slow, slow. And inconsistent. I've gotten hangs, drops, just spinning icons for minutes before giving up. I'd say it's dial-up quality at best, maybe like dial-up during a Florida lightning storm. I have a hard time paying twice as much as dial-up for sub par dial-up performance. If I pay $20 a month I should be able to get consistent useable speeds, enough that I can look at a web page with a reasonable page load wait.
So, after digesting all this previously I said, "screw it, maybe I'll just jump on the internet using my phone when at home." I have a mac, it has internet access sharing via bluetooth built in, my phone has bluetooth, problem semi-solved, right? Sure, as long as I can convince my cell company to give me the unlock code to my phone so I can enable that HARDWARE feature of the phone that I purchased (not a freebie). So these arrogant assholes have cut off functionality of the product they resell because that feature might remotely compete with an over priced offering of their own. It's my phone, I paid for it, my internet access I paid for once going over the Bluetooth in my house, what business is it of my cell phone company to stop that? Sure, I guess if the manufacturer is cool with you doing that, fine, but I think the truth in advertising laws should require you to slap a big ugly sticker on every box that states clearly that this product's features are crippled. I guarantee you I would not have bought this phone had I known that my service would block my use of connecting to networks via bluetooth or dial-up access.
And so this is why I eagerly await the widespread implementation of wireless internet via WiFi to supplant the cellular systems. Sure, it would be another bill, but then that opens up a world of possibilities for endless entries into the VOIP arena and wonderful wonderful competition that will drive the prices of service down while the quality higher. Maybe then I can afford to actually use my phone as the tool I always wanted it to be.
6 Sigma |
Posted by Terry Howard @ 8/24/2006
The statistical representation of Six Sigma describes quantitatively how a process is performing. To achieve Six Sigma, a process must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. A Six Sigma defect is defined as anything outside of customer specifications. A Six Sigma opportunity is then the total quantity of chances for a defect. Process sigma can easily be calculated using a Six Sigma calculator.
So am I to understand this genius equation that every CEO and wannabe CEO raves about is used to computate and reveal the inner truth of business that making less mistakes is better? GASP! Why, that is profound! Geez, the things people come up with to sell a book or a seminar and the dupes that line up to rebuy their own pre-existing common sense is staggering sometimes.
Business Runs on Windows |
Posted by Terry Howard @ 8/17/2006
"The request to end the selected 16 bit task has timed out. The Win 16 Subsystem may be unstable. Press OK to terminate the Win 16 Subsystem or cancel to leave it running."
What? First of all, I don't recall turning on some developer mode, so the 99.9% of the public who might get this message have no clue what this would be talking about. And further, why would they feel comfortable making a seemingly big decision like "terminating the Win 16 Subsystem"? And this is not a new thing. Just last week I had some kind of freeze up that the only way out was to literally pull the physical plug from the wall. Apps crash and the whole thing goes down at least once a week if I'm lucky. And the messages I get are always confusing at best or totally contradicting at worst. I've even gotten error message that don't even use clear grammar or proper spelling. Does anyone at Microsoft QC this crap?
I've got a Mac at home, have for about 10 years now. OS X is lightyears ahead of anything Microsoft has out and will have out and it's just a shame most people don't realize the Windows they use and tie themselves to is utter crap and is costing them tons of time in maintenance and reboots. Let me put it to you this way. My Mac has been on for over a year now. I restart it when I update the system once in a blue moon but that's when I tell it to restart. I don't have system wide crashes or vague confusing error messages. The thing just works. When I say it has been on, I mean up, running, not sleeping, just cranking away doing all kinds of things. And it works as fast if not faster than my newish HP with multi gig speed processor. My Mac is over 6 years old and has a half of a gig!
Seriously, if you are one of those Businesses have to run on Windows sheep, just give a Mac a try for a bit. All the software is there (a better software) and you can actually have the uptime to run it more efficiently. Stop being ignorant on the issue and be a smart business owner.
3-2-1 Blast Off to Planet Stupid! |
Posted by Terry Howard @ 8/16/2006
So I'm driving down I-4 heading home today and I came across this moron. I wish I had a better picture, this is my cell phone at 70mph (I know, not safe, but I had to get the shot). This "person" had mounted a big fake stabilizer tail fin with a mock jet engine looking tube thingie in the center. It might look cool, on the bat mobile, but this was a late 90's Pontiac or something. It wasn't even black or red, just your standard stock siilvery blue. And driving up it didn't look like some teen kid being funny (like the guy this morning I saw in the van with the WWII Tiger Shark teeth painted on and bull horns mounted on the hood, awesome dude!) it was your typical suburban pimp yo ride wannabe MTV thugster with the dipshit lean and crooked hat. I mean, I thought the guys with the erector set looking whale tail things rising up a whole foot were retarded, but this guy is the king of "Auto-Tards". In fact, I declare a new class of human being, the Auto-Tard, and you sir, are their witless leader. It's obvious you sunk the last of your hard earned minimum wage dollars into that mock Mig-Rig because you certainly couldn't afford to "pimp" out anything else on your car. For that kind of blind stupid commitment to livin' la vida moron, I crown you king, oh lord of the rolling borfs.
Can You Digg It? No... Not Really |
Posted by Terry Howard @ 8/16/2006
And god help the poor soul who posts an article loosely related to anything previously posted on Digg at any point in recorded history. Immediately thousands of nerds will rush into action, stopping what they are doing at any given moment (which is most likely jerking to anime porn, sorry, pr0n) so they can be the first to call you filthy names that would get them pummeled by even Ghandi had they been said in person. And then, somehow, within 3 comments length the discussion will immediately turn into how Bush eats children and Al Gore didn't get a fair shake and then it eventually degrades into a general argument over which obscure Japanese robot cartoon would kick which's ass.
But somewhere amongst the crap surfaces an article of great interest to me that I really enjoy reading. That has kept me wading through the sewage that is Digg for some time now. And I've dreamed of having a "filtered Digg" something that was the good articles minus the garboo. And then it dawned on me, I already have it, right there in the feed reader just under the Digg feed. It's called Slashdot.
Google Talk |
Posted by Terry Howard @ 8/16/2006