I just read an article in eWeek that left me shaking my head and thinking, what's it take to get some respect in this world? LOL!!!
Let me illustrate my point...
Direct Quotes:
"SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 31 - Google Inc. reported a disappointing quarterly profit and spending plans that startled some Wall Street analysts, sending its shares down 8 percent on Thursday."
"Fourth-quarter net income rose to $1.21 billion..."
"Revenue rose 51 percent to $4.827 billion."
Pretty amazing! Both revenue and net income rose, yet the analysts are startled. LOL!!!
Oh well... it just goes to show, positive results are not always enough in the world of business. Sure do wish I owned a company whose NET (yes NET) income ROSE (yes ROSE) to $1.21 billion.
To read the full article click on the following link: Google Balloon Pops
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
State Of The Union...
I consider myself to be reasonably open minded when it comes to politics. Being the leader of this country must be an extremely difficult job. I often wonder if there is any group of individuals that can be successful at fulfilling that role.
As I listened to the State Of The Union speech last night, I heard everything President Bush was saying, yet I couldn't help but think to myself, 'so what!' and 'so how is our country doing?'.
Honestly, I feel pretty discouraged with current conditions in our country. I'm deeply concerned over the national debt. Today, 1/29/08, it's sitting at about $9.2 trillion dollars. Yes... trillion... that's a lot of zeros. According to one source (http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/) our debt has been rising at a rate of $1.43 billion (yes BILLION) dollars per day, since September 29, 2006. As if that's not bad enough, an article in the Washington Times (http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20080129/NATION/748742259/1002/NATION) reports that President Bush is seeking another $70 BILLION dollars to fund our war efforts through 2009.
This country is already 9.2 TRILLION dollars in debt, where is the $70 BILLION dollars supposed to come from???
Seriously folks... you or I would never survive conducting our finances in this manner. If your family made $100K per year and had $300K in revolving credit card debt, such that your income was not even able to cover the interest on that debt, there is no way a legitimate financial institution would lend you any more money.
Under these circumstances, you would find that your day to day life was completely constrained by your financial state. You wouldn't be able to go out for entertainment, you wouldn't be able to afford to repair your car, you wouldn't be able to absorb medical expenses, you wouldn't be paying college tuition, and the list goes on. Why? Because your finances are in complete turmoil!!
Well that's exactly the state of affairs (State Of The Union) that this country is in right now. Oh sure... some folks are doing okay, but as these financial conditions continue to worsen, more and more folks are dropping off the back end.
What's it going to take for our leadership to accept the true State Of Our Union and start turning this around? I'm happy to see President Bush move on and I'm still hopeful about our country's future. Hopefully our next leader will be able to take a snapshot of where this country stands when they take office and show real results at the conclusion of their first term.
I don't know how you feel, and I've never considered myself to be a selfish person, but I'm looking for a candidate that will spend their 8 years focusing on fixing THIS country and inform our international allies that they are going to have to do more to take care of themselves, until we get our own house in order.
As I listened to the State Of The Union speech last night, I heard everything President Bush was saying, yet I couldn't help but think to myself, 'so what!' and 'so how is our country doing?'.
Honestly, I feel pretty discouraged with current conditions in our country. I'm deeply concerned over the national debt. Today, 1/29/08, it's sitting at about $9.2 trillion dollars. Yes... trillion... that's a lot of zeros. According to one source (http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/) our debt has been rising at a rate of $1.43 billion (yes BILLION) dollars per day, since September 29, 2006. As if that's not bad enough, an article in the Washington Times (http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20080129/NATION/748742259/1002/NATION) reports that President Bush is seeking another $70 BILLION dollars to fund our war efforts through 2009.
This country is already 9.2 TRILLION dollars in debt, where is the $70 BILLION dollars supposed to come from???
Seriously folks... you or I would never survive conducting our finances in this manner. If your family made $100K per year and had $300K in revolving credit card debt, such that your income was not even able to cover the interest on that debt, there is no way a legitimate financial institution would lend you any more money.
Under these circumstances, you would find that your day to day life was completely constrained by your financial state. You wouldn't be able to go out for entertainment, you wouldn't be able to afford to repair your car, you wouldn't be able to absorb medical expenses, you wouldn't be paying college tuition, and the list goes on. Why? Because your finances are in complete turmoil!!
Well that's exactly the state of affairs (State Of The Union) that this country is in right now. Oh sure... some folks are doing okay, but as these financial conditions continue to worsen, more and more folks are dropping off the back end.
What's it going to take for our leadership to accept the true State Of Our Union and start turning this around? I'm happy to see President Bush move on and I'm still hopeful about our country's future. Hopefully our next leader will be able to take a snapshot of where this country stands when they take office and show real results at the conclusion of their first term.
I don't know how you feel, and I've never considered myself to be a selfish person, but I'm looking for a candidate that will spend their 8 years focusing on fixing THIS country and inform our international allies that they are going to have to do more to take care of themselves, until we get our own house in order.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Time sensitive...
I've been involved with technology for several years now and I love it. Look at all the great things that have evolved as a result of the Internet. Hmmm... blogging comes to mind. How about MySpace and YouTube too?
As a techie, the Internet is one of my greatest resources but one thing I've noticed as I seek out information, is that there are numerous articles around that don't have dates listed anywhere in the article. This is a real faux-pas in terms relevance of the information.
I've recently taken on the challenge of trying to set up a Linux storage cluster that makes use of an ATA Over Ethernet (AoE) interface and while there are several articles on the subject, as one reads through them, it becomes apparent, often quickly, that the article is not relevant to the current software environment.
This doesn't mean the article isn't valuable, but if these articles had a dates associated with them, one would be able to place them in some sort of context. Without dates, the information is often be mis-leading and sometimes even harmful.
There isn't much that can be done to correct an issue like this, after the fact, but it would sure be nice to see all Internet based articles tagged with the date it was posted. Similar to what we see today with our blog posts.
As a techie, the Internet is one of my greatest resources but one thing I've noticed as I seek out information, is that there are numerous articles around that don't have dates listed anywhere in the article. This is a real faux-pas in terms relevance of the information.
I've recently taken on the challenge of trying to set up a Linux storage cluster that makes use of an ATA Over Ethernet (AoE) interface and while there are several articles on the subject, as one reads through them, it becomes apparent, often quickly, that the article is not relevant to the current software environment.
This doesn't mean the article isn't valuable, but if these articles had a dates associated with them, one would be able to place them in some sort of context. Without dates, the information is often be mis-leading and sometimes even harmful.
There isn't much that can be done to correct an issue like this, after the fact, but it would sure be nice to see all Internet based articles tagged with the date it was posted. Similar to what we see today with our blog posts.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
A Southwest blunder...
I used to do a fair amount of business travel and I would often fly Southwest Airlines whenever possible. Why, you ask? Because of their great service? No. Because of their comfortable planes? No. I flew SWA because they had what I considered to be the best frequent flyer program around.
It seems that Southwest has determined that they need to start changing things in the services they provide. For example, assigning numbers to individuals in the various boarding groups and dividing the frequent flyer awards into different categories of awards.
I first noticed this change in strategy the last time I tried to use one of my awards certificates and discovered that I couldn't use it on, what seemed to me to be an otherwise meaningless travel day. There was a time when an award was treated like a full-fare ticket. That was the way it was marketed, that's the way it was processed, and that's the way it should have stayed.
Today I went to book a flight with another award certificate and much to my dismay, I find that the awards are now broken into different categories. I can use my current 'standard' award for certain flight times on certain days or I can trade in 2 'standard' awards and receive a 'premier' award which gives me a larger selection of flights and times to choose from.
What this basically equates too, is that I have to travel twice as much to receive the same benefits that I used to receive.
Now I'm not one to knock getting something for free, but everything comes with a price. Other airlines have frequent flyer programs too. I used to have to take 8 round trips on SWA to get a full-fare free flight. Now to get the equivalent value, I have to make 16 round trips.
How does that compare to other mileage programs? I don't know yet, but because SWA has decided to change things up, I'm certainly going to look into it.
Apparently SWA misunderstood the rule, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. Nevertheless, they have fixed it and I wonder how long it will take them to figure out that by fixing it, they have actually broken it. So sad.
It seems that Southwest has determined that they need to start changing things in the services they provide. For example, assigning numbers to individuals in the various boarding groups and dividing the frequent flyer awards into different categories of awards.
I first noticed this change in strategy the last time I tried to use one of my awards certificates and discovered that I couldn't use it on, what seemed to me to be an otherwise meaningless travel day. There was a time when an award was treated like a full-fare ticket. That was the way it was marketed, that's the way it was processed, and that's the way it should have stayed.
Today I went to book a flight with another award certificate and much to my dismay, I find that the awards are now broken into different categories. I can use my current 'standard' award for certain flight times on certain days or I can trade in 2 'standard' awards and receive a 'premier' award which gives me a larger selection of flights and times to choose from.
What this basically equates too, is that I have to travel twice as much to receive the same benefits that I used to receive.
Now I'm not one to knock getting something for free, but everything comes with a price. Other airlines have frequent flyer programs too. I used to have to take 8 round trips on SWA to get a full-fare free flight. Now to get the equivalent value, I have to make 16 round trips.
How does that compare to other mileage programs? I don't know yet, but because SWA has decided to change things up, I'm certainly going to look into it.
Apparently SWA misunderstood the rule, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. Nevertheless, they have fixed it and I wonder how long it will take them to figure out that by fixing it, they have actually broken it. So sad.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
My First Post...
Creative title, wouldn't you say? LOL! Well I'm going to give blogging a try again. I tried this once before and for some reason I don't think it satisfied whatever goal I was trying to fulfill at the time. Nevertheless, I've recently found myself wanting to comment on interesting things that I encounter in my life and so this seems like a good way to do that.
Over the years I've been inspired by some regular bloggers out there. So I started thinking, why not me? I hope that as I proceed down this path that I'll be able to build a nice history of blogging that I'll be able to look back on and remember where I've been and what I've done.
Over the years I've been inspired by some regular bloggers out there. So I started thinking, why not me? I hope that as I proceed down this path that I'll be able to build a nice history of blogging that I'll be able to look back on and remember where I've been and what I've done.
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