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Cyber Monday Is Tomorrow0
Joe M posted in opinion on November 30th, 2009

Tomorrow is Cyber Monday.

It’s the Monday, following Black Friday.

It’s the time in which the internet population usually begins their online shopping sprees, before the Holiday Season.

As for my suggestions…

Google Products is always good.  I always seem to have pretty good luck, there.

Many of the links point to eBay.

(I just found out recently, that eBay now will back your purchases, with the exception of shipping fees.  That’s good news!)

Bing has some deals with certain merchants and businesses for discounts.

Shopper.com is usually pretty good.

There are loads of others.

Whichever sites you use…  My suggestions are as follows:

1.  Decline ‘Web Loyalty’ deals from some of the major online retailers.  There is currently some government investigation going on with some of these WL programs.  Steer clear of them, no matter how good the purchase you are making, makes them sound.

2.  Just because a site says an item is on sale… check multiple sites… see what the average price for the item on your shopping list.  Many sites (and stores) will label an item as ‘On Sale’ when in fact, it is the same price as the MSRP.

3.  Watch for outrageous shipping fees.  This is not as big a problem, as it once was… but it does not hurt to be on the lookout.

4.  Watch for petty, itemized purchases.  You may find an item that sounds like a good deal, from a search engine.  When you move ahead with the purchase, you may find that the merchant will try to sell you what should be included accessories, with your purchase of the cheap item.  What ends up happening, is that you end up paying more, in the long run…  for the item and the additional charges for each accessory.

5.  Beware of additional ’savings’ offered during a shopping transaction, to enroll in a credit card program.  Many times, you may see outrageous annual fees, interest rates or additional charges.

There are numerous coupon sites and deals out there.  More and more companies are offering better deals for online shoppers.

The best tip of all:  Shop around, and don’t buy the first deal you come across… use your printer or a pencil and paper to keep track of the best deals.

Compare them all, after you finish.  Read and compare all the fine details, then make a decision.

Installing Modems – Because I Still Can0
Joe M posted in Home Support, Musing on November 28th, 2009

I set up a machine for someone this week, who is still using dial-up.

I took it on as a challenge, to see if I could still do it.

It was an old P4 1.7 GHz machine.  I stuck two old 40 GB drives in it, with 1 GB of RAM.

Not too bad.  It’s an old machine, but should suffice for dial-up internet and email.

Since the user was still using Windows 95… they complained of having too many viruses, and their current dial-up would not even connect.

With Microsoft’s Windows 95 support ending years ago… It’s no wonder.

For the replacement machine, I wanted to minimize the events that the user would encounter a virus or some sort of crapware.

For the install I chose Ubuntu 9.10, Karmic Koala.

The install went well, and was done in about 25 minutes.

I pulled out an old 56K modem I had.  I plugged in the serial cable… and the power.

After entering “sudo dmesg | grep tty” from the command line, I found the modem active on ttyS0.

I installed wvdial from the command line.

I edited the wvdial.conf, adding the modem on /dev/ttyS0.  I also added the username and password.

Next I edited resolv.conf.  I looked online to find out the domain and DNS server settings for his ISP.

To finish things up, I created a shortcut to do the dialing, in a quick shortcut on the top bar.

I set the command line shortcut to

gnome-terminal –title=”Dialing the ISP, Click X to close” -e –command=wvdial

This tells the system to open a terminal window, place the title at the top and feed the window the command.

After testing it out, it all seemed to work like clockwork.

In retrospect, I could have easily installed gnome-PPP to simplify the config process.

I could have also used wvdialconf to set up the dial-up connection.

No problems, though.  It’s good exercise to do it the long way.

I am reminded of the scene from ‘Karate Kid’, in which Daniel is frustrated with doing so many seemingly pointless chores.

Not only was he building character, but he was developing skills and learning things he never thought possible.

A Thanksgiving Thought0
Joe M posted in Musing, opinion on November 27th, 2009

Since it’s Thanksgiving, I have been doing quite a bit of reflecting.

Helping people has become a part of my personality, and my approach to life.

It’s one of my many blessings, for which I am thankful.

For many people, the task of working on a machine or software seems mundane… too much like work.

For me… I find value in many of the tasks.

It’s not that I want to fix everyone’s PC, or clean them off.

I have too much on my schedule, as is.

What I have learned:

Synaptically, there is a bigger picture that many people do not see.

Facing minor challenges arm the solution provider with much more than accomplishing a simple mundane task.

When you consider a problem, there is much more going on, in your head.

Most people do not realize that as you make it a practice to solve problems, that ability becomes stronger.

The solutions become added to your personal overall knowledgebase.

Even though you might not remember every single solution, you are strengthing your problem-solving abilities.

Looking at the darker side…

Many times, the people that I help may seem to have an aloof nature about them… as if they are getting something for free… and that I may not realize it.

The hard truth is… many times, they are shorting themselves valuable experience.

Even if it is not part of your skillset, or daily practice… Finding solutions can benefit everyone… even non-IT types.

Everyone has to start somewhere.

I do not believe in allowing people to take advantage of help.  Many times, I turn people away, while offering them direction in finding their own solutions.

The other part of the truth is… the lighter side… by helping others, we grow.

Mother Teresa was a living example of that part of the truth.

Recently, I have faced some challenges, in which I feel I had an advantage in facing.

Through my own motivation to learn new challenges… those challenges then evolved into opportunities.

In my reflection, I thank God for the chance and the ability to see those truths.

I want to wish my readers a Happy Thanksgiving and leave you with one thought:

When it comes to helping people and problem solving, the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

Jumping the Boxee 64 bit Linux Hurdle0
Joe M posted in Home Support, products on November 25th, 2009

One of the challenges I have been facing in my new media center, stems from the fact that I am running Ubuntu 9.04 64 bit.

Boxee has been a blast, and has almost become a necessity for my media center.

The only problem?

Boxee is available for Win32, Win64 and 32 bit Linux.  No 64 bit is available.

I have grown quite fond of it on the 32 bit version of the install on the media center.

I have had a couple of people ask, “Why do you have to run the 64 bit version of the OS?  32 bit should offer everything you need.”

Call it a quirk, but there is something about having more resources available that gives me comfort.

Whether it’s the fact that a 32 bit OS gives you limited addressibility to your RAM without a cheat or utility, I just feel better, running 64.

So, I have spent the past few days working through forum posts, blogs and articles regarding how to install Boxee on 64 bit Ubuntu.

After culminating several readings, I finally managed to get it to install on Ubuntu 9.04 64 bit.

Here are the steps I took.

wget http://frozenfox.freehostia.com/cappy/getlibs-all.deb
sudo dpkg -i getlibs-all.deb
wget http://apt.boxee.tv/dists/jaunty/main/binary-i386/Packages.gz
zcat Packages.gz | grep boxee

(Once you figure out what the latest version is, from the last command… change the filename at the end to match the latest version)

wget http://apt.boxee.tv/dists/jaunty/test/binary-i386/boxee-0.9.14.6992.deb      (replace the boxee-X.X.XX.XXXX.deb with the version result from the zcat command).
sudo dpkg -i –force-architecture boxee-0.9.14.6992.deb
getlibs /opt/boxee/Boxee
sudo apt-get install lib32nss-mdns

Once I completed all the steps, Boxee fired up without any problems.

Opera 10.10 Now Available0
Joe M posted in free stuff, products on November 24th, 2009

Opera 10.10 has been released.

It features Unite, a way in which users can easily share photos and stream music.

You can check out more at http://unite.opera.com.

Opera is free to download and use.

Black Friday And ‘Bargains’0
Joe M posted in Uncategorized on November 23rd, 2009

With Black Friday approaching, I have observed several people preparing for the venture.

As for me, I have never been a Black Friday fan.

I have always shunned going any where near a mall or department store on Black Friday.

In fact, I avoid going out, much at all.

Black Friday is a good day to stay home.

Why am I like this?

It’s a matter of the observations I have made over the past few years.

There is also a great article on CNN about Black Friday.

I have always had a suspicious approach when it comes to salespeople and to marketers.

Never had much faith or trust in them.

While everyone else falls for the legalized “Bait and Switch” advertisements for ‘limited quantities’, I have always been skeptical about such things.

With horror stories of people getting trampled, injured and even killed during shopping rushes; I never had the inclination to participate in such outrage.

From the CNN article… two things jump out at me…

Don’t count on scoring a deal on an item advertised in limited quantities. The quantities are usually so limited that not too many people will score them.

Some stores will also understock items, to create a buzz and more demand for those items.

With idiotic marketing and sales approaches like that… It’s not activity in the best interest of the consumer.

It makes Black Friday even more dangerous, perhaps.

(I can’t believe there have not been more liability lawsuits for some of these advertisements.)

Watching how people shop, and being a pretty observant individual…

The best approach I have seen is the one that my parents take… especially my mother.

She shops for Christmas, all year long.  When Christmas season arrives, she usually has her shopping complete.

If you have a tight schedule and are not quite so lucky… I think the best approach is to plan ahead.

So many people go shopping without a plan, and I think it is the most important part.

The great thing about planning… you can do it anytime, before the stores are open.

Even if it is not the most confident plan, it still puts you ahead of the curve.

(Think about this… The Black Friday and Christmas rush is filled with people meandering, and they don’t know for what they are looking.)

The other part of not having a plan, you usually will end up spending more than you would normally.

If you need to browse, you can usually do that at home, from the comfort of your living room or office.

Google Product Search is a good way to get ideas.

Believe it or not, you can still get deals as good as or better than you would in the Black Friday rush, shopping online.

In the long run, you will save money and frustration.

Xbox Banning: A Closed Approach To Hardware0
Joe M posted in products on November 22nd, 2009

With all the talk this week of Xbox users getting banned from Xbox Live…

There seems to be all sorts of patterns developing.

It seems that users that made any changes to their Xbox, either modding, adding chips or installing tainted software were completely kicked off.

Once again… seems like Microsoft is missing the boat.

They missed it in the 90’s with WebTV.

It was an appliance that would promise great things…  as long as what you wanted to do was send text email or browse something on MSN.

Some parts of it were the right idea… wrong execution at the wrong time.

With the original Xbox, MS missed the boat again.

People modded the box and made it a great appliance.

Being able to play movies, media and much more.

For some reason, MS went (and still goes) out of their way to make sure that users that mod their Xbox were banned, kicked or disabled.

With the announcement this week, of Boxee’s hardware partnership…

Seems pretty certain that MS missed another opportunity.

For some reason, they finally got the message from users and produced Windows 7, probably much to the behest of some of their partners.

Microsoft could still stand to learn a great deal more from their user community… and benefit from it.

Why not allow users to make changes and mod their Xbox?

Not sure why they feel the need to allow others to view them as police, judge and jury.

Microsoft has been flirting with open source and even released some open source code lately.

Why not open source some of their own hardware?

(The question is rhetorical.  I am pretty sure someone in their partner community is prompting them to circumvent ‘piracy.’)

It would create a buzz and a motivation within the public to own an Xbox.

That’s not to mention the benefit of having users contribute code and design to software and hardware.

Microsoft is not alone in their behavior.  Think about how Apple feels about the iPhone and iTunes.

I think an open philosopy would benefit all of them, in more ways than any are willing to admit.

Download Microsoft Office 2010 Beta (For Windows)0
Joe M posted in products on November 20th, 2009

Microsoft has released Office 2010 Beta for download to the public.

Office 2010 Beta includes Word, OneNote, InfoPath, PowerPoint, Access, SharePoint Workspace, Outlook, Publisher, Communicator and Excel.

Microsoft recommends that you uninstall any previous versions of MS Office, prior to downloading and installing 2010.

They also recommend running it on a ‘non-production’ system in your household… meaning that if you have a dependence of Office on a particular PC, they recommend against installing it on that machine.

They also recommend backing up your data from the target machine, prior to the install, in case something should go wrong.

Here are the pre-requisites:

Internet access for the download updates
500 MHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor or higher
256 MB of system memory or more
3.5 GB of available disk space
1024×768 or higher resolution monitor
DVD-R/W Drive

It works on the following versions of Windows:

Windows XP with Service Pack (SP) 3 (32-bit)
Windows Vista with SP1 (32-bit or 64-bit)
Windows Server 2003 R2 (32-bit or 64-bit)
Windows Server 2008 with SP2 (32-bit or 64-bit)
Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit)

If you are interested in giving it a spin… see the details and the download here.

The download does require that you register to use the evaluation copy.

The Evolution Of Appliance Television0
Joe M posted in homelife, opinion on November 19th, 2009

Over the past two weeks, I have been playing with my media center.

Prior to using Boxee and Hulu…

I was using Ubuntu to download videos and watch them with whatever player worked best.

Having heard about Boxee for quite a while, I decided to give it a spin.

What I discovered, was… I fell in love with it.

No more going to websites, saving video podcasts or audio podcasts.

Boxee offered a great interface with one-stop features.

I found that it is a great complement to my cable box, when there is little on.

Boxee has announced a hardware partnership.

That means, that sometimes in the coming months, we will likely see a media appliance with a Boxee logo.

My guess is, we will see both ad-supported content and subscription-based content availabe for digital delivery.

Looking at digital media delivery, in the big picture…

With Rupert Murdoch pondering how Google makes money, and questioning if it cuts into mainstream media revenue…

There are certain patterns emerging… and certain theorems that remain strong.

There is still revenue to be generated in media.

The difference that is emerging… is the way in which media is delivered.

Television has been around a long time.

The fact is… advertisements and commercials are stil going strong… and still providing quite a bit of revenue.

The challenge for media organizations is to figure out a way in which to generate the revenue, without turning away the general public.

Television and cable are still doing it, so it’s not impossible.

With the hardware partnership announcement from Boxee, we can expect the TV appliance market to continue to evolve.

If it’s going to be successful, it will have to be based on an ad-supported model, or provide a subscription-based model with features for which all consumers will yearn.

(Apple has yet to achieve this yet with AppleTV.)

Over the past two weeks, playing with Boxee and Hulu…

I find myself watching and discovering things that I would not in normal circumstances.

I spend time exploring the menus and feeds.

This is a potentially untapped delivery mechanism, of which mainstream media and the likes should realize.

There is still money to be made, there… but the challenge is to generate revenue while keeping an audience.

Etch-a-sketch In The 21rst Century0
Joe M posted in Musing, homelife on November 18th, 2009

The Etch-a-sketch has been around a long time.

The Etch-a-sketch has gotten an update.

The two knobs have been replaced with a single trackball.

Still mechanical and still works on the same principles.

You can now buy overlays to go over the screen, for games and tracing fun.

Preview Of An $80 Laptop0
Joe M posted in opinion, products on November 17th, 2009

This video is a little long, almost 20 minutes.

Keep in mind, this laptop he has seems to be somewhat of a prototype, or a proof of concept.

The Arm processor it’s built with is out of date… but the important thing are the basic demos.

Pay attention to the fact that this one is running Windows CE.

I can’t wait to see someone take and tweak Android or another appliance-oriented Linux for one of these.

And, don’t forget… Arm is forging ahead with new designs in processors.

Their success means that computing becomes more affordable, for all of us.

No more paying for stuff you don’t want or need… whether it’s hardware or software.

I don’t know why I am so intrigued with these.

Not sure if it is the boost in competition or the boost in efficiency.

Adding Tweaks To My Media Center0
Joe M posted in homelife on November 16th, 2009

Over the past couple of days, I have been working to tweak my new media center.

I am running Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope, dual-booted bewteen 32 and 64 bit versions.

Overall, I am still pleased with the purchase… but I am working to pull every ounce of power and optimize the performance as much as possible.

Hulu and Boxee are performing better than they were, initially.

The best strides I have made are as follows…

1.  Tweaks in Firefox from the about:config menu.

Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”
Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”
Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to 10

There are other tweaks to make to Firefox, but I believe these are the ones that seemed to affect the performance of the video playback the most for me.

2.  Install the latest Adobe Flash player update.

After you install the update, make sure that Video Acceleration is enabled.  (If you really want to see jumpy and freezing video, turn it off.)

The next thing, is to set the cache for Adobe Flash…

You can find these settings by pulling up a flash application like Youtube inside of Firefox… and right-clicking on the screen inside the video.

You’ll see an “About Adobe Flash Player” and a “Settings” option appear.  Click “Settings”.

On one of the tabs, you will see a slider for the cache that controls the amount of disk space that flash will use.

I found that the best performance for video is to set the cache to unlimited.

Those are the best tweaks that I have found so far.

Overall, the performance is getting better.

After Hulu and Boxee have been out for a little while longer… someone will discover more ways to tweak them for performance.

Hopefully, media companies will work toward both better performance and better production.

I have noticed that the videos on Revision3 and some of the other sites seem to play flawlessly from within Boxee.

If we can score performance like that for all videos, across the board… we all will be happier.

Google Thinks Outside Of The http Box0
Joe M posted in Musing, opinion on November 13th, 2009

Google has released a proposed new addition to the HTTP protocol for the web.

Their goal is to speed up websurfing and web transactions.

The new protocol is called “SPDY”… Pronounced Speedy.

It makes allowances to use SSL within the new specifications.

They have tested it, in the lab… and the results seem promising.

Among the features in the new specifications are the ability to push from a server to the client.

The tests Google has performed have seen roughly a third to a half of the current speed increase.

The proposal seems to offer a great deal of features.

With an implementation of SSL, it seems to promise easy access through routers and firewalls.

Google has a web server and a Chome build with the SPDY implementation.

You can read the specifications here, and even download the code, if you so desire.

Regardless of whether it takes off or not…

It’s good to see things like this in the works.

What it means for you and me… the possibility of faster browsing and sending traffic ‘a different or alternate way’ over the internet.

It possibly could add some advantage for web enabled service provision… and subsequently deliveries like social media.

What if Twitter or Facebook were more interactive, and actively notified you when there were updates?

Ideas and innovation power the economy and society.

My own take is… the more ideas we see and innovation…

The more we flourish and the better chance of economic recovery we have.

Rebooting Windows From The Command Line0
Joe M posted in Home Support on November 12th, 2009

I had someone ask me about forcing one of their computers to reboot from the command line, or a batch file.

In Windows… XP, Vista and Windows 7…

If you want to force your machine to reboot from the command line…

Open a DOS prompt…

Type

shutdown -r -f -t 15 <enter>

The -r switch tells the shutdown command to reboot.

The -f switch forces the command to execute.

The-t 15 switch gives the timeframe, in this case 15 seconds.

Note:  The current user must possess the proper permissions to shutdown and reboot the computer.

There is another scenario in which this command can be useful.

You have a machine in your home, that is upstairs on the opposite side of the house, or building.

To reboot a machine remotely…

Type the following at a command prompt, on your machine…

shutdown -r -f -m \\{RemoteMachineName} -t 15 <enter>

The structure is identical to the previous command, with the exception of the added -m \\{RemoteMachineName}.  Leave the {} out when you type the command.

You can also type the command into a batch file, using notepad.

Save it to a file with a *.bat extension to your desktop.

If you need to reboot the home server, upstairs, you can do it by double-clicking the batch file on your desktop.

You can also leave out the remote parameters and just use the batch file to reboot your local machine.

Power Your Photo Touching In Windows With paint.NET0
Joe M posted in free stuff, products on November 11th, 2009

There is a new version of paint.NET available.

If you are running Windows and need a free, powerful photo editor…

This one is for you.

paint.NET offers some advanced features that rival Adobe Photoshop and The GIMP.

Version 3.5 is out and available here.

When Bullets Become Art0
Joe M posted in Musing on November 10th, 2009

Lavasoft Warns Of New Trojan Threats0
Joe M posted in security on November 9th, 2009

With those of us running Windows, and with a new version of Windows just released…

The folks at Lavasoft have issued a warning of a new trojan in the wild.

This one is much similar to the ones we have seen in the past.

There are warnings of an infection on your system, and of course, an ‘offer for help.’

Of course, if you click the link, then you see…

It’s more of the same old thing.

If you click on either… you’ll be installing something undesirable, for sure.

That could be any variant of a virus, trojan, worm or root kit.

With Windows 7 out, I would recommend being even more cautious, than before.

Many people may be under a false sense of security.

It’s not that there necessarily is any security problems with Windows 7.

My concern is that with Windows 7 being so highly available, this year, in beta and RC…

I wonder how many people with less-than-respectable intentions have downloaded it, found potential exploits…

And are waiting to launch some sort of campaign or threat against the exploits, just at the right opportunity?

We will certainly find out.

We can also expect some reverse engineering and building on the exploit.  We won’t only see the above two screens, but several more variations of it.

Upgrading My TV Media Center0
Joe M posted in homelife, products on November 8th, 2009

After messing around and getting frustrated with my old pentium 4 desktop, connected to the TV set…

I finally decided to upgrade.

I decided that it was time to replace the whole box.

I did some research, first.

Reading reviews and forums… I decided that an AMD quad-core processor would be more than suitable for me.

It would provide a good platform for running Ubuntu and the apps that I wanted to run.

I decided on a AMD Phenom II 945, with 4 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SATA HD.

I ordered the machine without an Operating System and a video card, since I had a PCI-e put aside.

I also had a DVD burner, so I skimped again and ordered it with an optical drive.

I had a wireless card, so I did not bother ordering one of those, either.

For the OS, as I stated earlier… I would run Ubuntu.

It’s user-friendly, and seems to have gained quite a bit of acceptance and support.

I ordered the machine online, from Ascendtech.
$460 + shipping costs… not too bad.

I spent some time last night, getting the hardware components and the OS installed.

The parts of the install that took a little longer:

1.  Getting the wireless card and the PCI-e video card seated, properly.  (Note:  I used an NVidia video card.  For the most part, ATI cards work OK, but with Linux support… NVidia cards are usually better supported and more reliable when you run Linux.)

2.  For the video card, it came with a special dongle.  I connected the S-Video cable to the dongle and to the back of the TV set.  I had to go into the NVidia applet to change the settings to allow the S-Video to work, properly fed from the card.

I downloaded and installed the Hulu client.

I had to catch myself… I wanted to watch several shows via Hulu, as opposed to finishing the install.

I finally managed to finish it.

Now, I am in the phase of adjusting and tweaking.

So far, I am completely happy with the purchase, and the performance of the machine.

The amazing part is… I actually forget that I am watching a computer…

It’s like having a completely new set of channels.

My next step is to install Boxee and some of the other media apps.

I will post more on my progress.

For Beatles Fans: An Alternate Reality (?)0
Joe M posted in Musing on November 6th, 2009

Stumbling across the net, lately… I came across a story…

Straight out of what could be a tangent of Fringe.

“The Beatles Never Broke Up”

Okay… to paraphrase some of the story, presented on this website…

The author, anonymous, pen-named James Richards makes several claims.

It seems that after stopping in a canyon, not too far from his residence in a nearby town in California…

The author had a minor mis-hap and was knocked unconscious.

Upon awakening, he met a good Samaritan, in strange quarters.

The Samaritan shared several things with him, about his whereabouts, and made several proclamations.

Even though I read the entire writing with much skepticism, I will not past judgment on the validity of the story.

If you like the Beatles or enjoy a good read… I encourage you to check it out.

I will tell you, there is a tape on the site, available in MP3 format, for you to download and check out.

Reading through the story, I was interested… and hooked enough to complete it.

Of course, I had to download the music and see what I thought.

After you read the story, you will have a better understanding of what I am talking about.

I am interested to see if others have the same conclusions and impressions that I have, from reading the story.

(I will say, I also wonder how long it will be, before a copyright organization demands removal of the MP3 files.)

Programmers Have A Sense Of Humor0
Joe M posted in Musing on November 4th, 2009

Okay…  I spent some time this evening stumbling across the web.

Finally I decided to go to YouTube and play a little.

Here is the error I got:

Joss Whedon Wants To Breathe New Life To An Old Franchise2
Joe M posted in Musing, opinion on November 3rd, 2009

Joss Whedon has written an open letter to the owners of the Terminator franchise.

It seems that he wants to buy the franchise, at least according to reports.

To me, this is exciting.

I love everything Joss Whedon puts his hands on.

Dollhouse is a constant head-scratcher.  Not in a bad way.

When I watched the pilot, it seemed at first that every week… there would be the same formula.

Much like the 70’s and 80’s formula for TV.

And to everyone’s unsuspecting surprise…

Every week that comes along, Dollhouse produces something different.

There are no rules or guidelines that are followed during the writing or production.

Even though the description may sound a little negative… it’s anything but negative.

I was also a big fan of Firefly.

Loved it.  Characters, plot and dynamics kept it going.

Fans are still begging for more.

If anyone can continue the Terminator franchise… Joss Whedon can.

Check out this writing.

What Does Your Employer Think Of Your Posts On Social Media?0
Joe M posted in homelife, security on November 2nd, 2009

In the news recently… companies are not very accepting of the use of social media.

Several stories recently, involve actions against employees including reprimand and even termination, for the alleged use of social media.

Some stories have involved ‘tweeting’ or ‘twittering’ on the job.  That means that the employees used twitter to make posts, while on the job.

Some stories involved Facebook, and making posts while on the job, or about the job.

These days, it’s important to remember the visibility of social media.

Remember, also, that prospective employers are searching the web with intense to find social media about or by the potential employee.

Whatever you post online, is visible for everyone, for the most part.

Companies with more than 25 employees are much more likely to discriminate.

If you use social media… my tips are as follows:

• 1.  Never mention your company by name.  Remember that Google and several other search engines will create indices and flags based off of words within a post or article.
• 2.  Watch the time frame of your post.  If you make a post, and the company can prove that you were on company premises or company time, it could mean trouble for you.
• 3.  Be careful about what you imply.  If you make comments about your employer without mentioning their name… you may still land in hot water.
• 4.  If your job responsibilities include travel, steer away from posts about your travel.  Any comments about arrangements or accommodations, strictly avoid.
• 5.  Avoid making posts about your schedule or the hours you put in.  Leave no bread crumbs or food for thought, related to projects or company economics.

Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are all fun.  Within all the fun, it’s easy to drop your guard and forget that your audience is not just your friends and relatives… it’s the entire world.

Though the stories are sparse about negative responses from companies, regarding social media, we can expect to hear much more about them.

With the economy downturn, employers are not only looking at offences and current policy…

They are also evaluating their current policy and making changes to it.

We can anticipate tighter expectations related to companies and work environments.  Additionally, we can not anticipate what our employers, and companies overall, will categorize as a security risk, related to information posted on social media.

In the meantime, we have to ask ourselves whether or not each of our actions are something our employer would readily endorse.

If the answer is, “No,” it’s better to err on the side of safety… especially when it comes to a career with our current or potential employer.

Tasting Ubuntu Zen With Karmic Koala0
Joe M posted in Home Support, free stuff, products on November 1st, 2009

I spent some time today, upgrading to the new version of Ubuntu.

Karmic Koala, Ubuntu 9.10, has been released for a couple of days.

The upgrade still took a couple of hours.

My guess is… there is probably still a great deal of traffic going to the distribution servers.

Right off the bat…

The boot splash screen seems snappier, better coloring… a nice change… even though it’s sepia toned.

Ubuntu Software Center seems a little bit more friendly, than Synaptic Package Manager.

Not that I had any problems with Synaptic… but looking at the big picture…

I can see it’s appeal for a new user.

From using it today, the function all seems to be pretty solid.

So far, everything is running pretty well.

Even though it may seem on the surface that all the changes from the previous version may be cosmetic…

I can tell there were some changes that were made ‘under the hood.’

The upgrade experience was much better, this time, than my previous experience with 9.04.

Due to the ATI card in my laptop… and the lack of support for ATI drivers… I had to go through a couple of gyrations to get the video drivers to work.

No problems this time!

So far, I am really happy.

Can’t wait to find out more.