Verizon Redirects Search Request (Updated July 29, 2008)

I recently switched my ISP to Verizon. Shortly thereafter I had a need to use one of my favorite software utilities Process Explorer. Basically PE has far better abilities than Windows Task manager when it comes seeing what processes are running on your PC and what application that process is associated with. I’m not going into the detail of Process Explorer’s features in this article just the recent problem I encountered with PE’s ability to allow you to select a process and then use PE’s built in web search to find what information is out there on the web about a process that you may not recognize.

Read the entire article: http://www.pagestart.com/verizonredirects.html

Iowa – Holding a nation hostage

For nearly the last 12 months we have been hearing day after day how the candidates have been campaigning in Iowa and how important winning or finishing high in the results will make or break a presidential candidate.

Iowa only has 7 of the 538 total electoral votes “Each State is allocated a number of electors equal to the number of its U.S. Senators (always 2) plus the number of its U.S. Representatives”. That means that Iowa has only 5 of the 435 members of the House of Representatives. Iowa has a population of about 3 million people, the U.S. population by comparison has total of 300 million people. That means that after the Iowa caucus is done about 297 million people will most likely be cheated out of a chance to cast a vote for their favorite candidate.

How can one state be so important that except for a very few others states, most will never get a chance to be heard from as their state’s primary election day will be held too late to make a difference.

Should Vista be compared with Windows ME

It’s been nine months and there are still vistas of problems reported with the new OS.
See what PC World has to say about this:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,138693/article.html

From China with Mal Intent

ABC News 09/27/07
“The White House is preparing a new initiative to protect against what it fears could be a crippling attack against the U.S. by computer, from overseas, and in particular, from China.”

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/09/from-china-with.html

Mattel Apologizes to China Over Recalls

Associated Press Report:

“U.S.-based toy giant Mattel Inc. issued an extraordinary apology to China on Friday over the recall of Chinese-made toys, taking the blame for design flaws and saying it had recalled more lead-tainted toys than justified.”

Read the full article:
http://money.excite.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt_top.jsp?news_id=ap-d8rpulig0&

Barbie to testify that China put lead in her pants

The Associated Press:
House, Senate Call CEOs of Mattel, Toys "R" Us to Testify About Unsafe Toys
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=3571313

Another week and another recall.
Should companies with U.S. names and once made products in the United States but now have their product made anywhere but in the U.S. (cheap labor, cheaper products) be classified as foreign companies doing business in the U.S.

Quality
Quality control has gone out the door, after all if it’s not made in my back yard why should I worry. Wonder if anyone even knows what a ‘C of C’ or ‘AQL’ means.

Color me Red China

The Associated Press has reported that: “Toys "R" Us has recalled 27,000 crayon and paint sets made in China because the packaging of the wooden box contains lead, as does some of the watercolor paint within, company and government officials said Thursday.”

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Consumer/wireStory?id=3541291

China must be getting pretty red in the face from all problems, wonder what’s going to be next!

China+ SpongeBob + Address Books = Return to sender

Even SpongeBob is not safe!
http://www.sbpost.ie/breakingnews/index.aspx?c=business&jp=mhcweygbidid

China + Toys "R" Us + Bibs = More Problems

Toys 'R' Us Pulls Bibs As a Precaution
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20070817/D8R321N80.html

China + Mattel + Toys + Lead = Problems

Mattel’s Quality Control department was obviously Out To Lunch on this one.
Mattel chief executive Bob Eckert kept dodging the lead when asked a series of questions by ABC’s Chris Cuomo.

ABC Interview details:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Consumer/Story?id=3478878&page=1&GMA=true

Toys and Seafood

Didn’t need to wait very long for the next round of problems from China, both of which have been around for awhile.

AP: Seafood From China Wasn't Screened
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20070808/D8QSJJS00.html

More children's jewelry recalled for lead; China questioned risks
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/safety/2007/07/more-childrens-.html

Milk up, OJ unchanged, Gas down, Michael Vic ???

Milk has gone way up in price and is now $4.50 a gallon, Orange Juice is $3.00 a gallon, and Gas is down to $2.67 a gallon. Michael Vick (Biteball QB) was bitten by a dog rap and is most likely out for the season.

Chinese Recalls China

Chinese Recalls China

Things are so bad these days that about every other week there is another high profile recall involving Chinese goods.

Pet food, Tires, Toothpaste, Toys and more toys and this time it’s Fisher Price in a one million toy recall,
source: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20070801/D8QOHPNG1.html.

In 2006, the U.S. imported about $288 billion in goods from China and you know what that means, even more potential recalls. Do yourself a favor the next time you go shopping, pick up an item, any item and see where it’s made, chances are it won’t be from the United States.

Probably the best thing China can do at this time is to recall the country of China, before the next big product recall is announced in the coming weeks.

Windows Vista Launch

When a new ship is launched they usually break a bottle of Champagne, the crowd cheers and the ship enters the water with a big splash. Today at midnight Vista was launched, the local TV news had a camera crew at one of the stores that was open and waiting as if some crowd of people would magically appear. This was not the case, a few people walking around with a boring look on their face and the rest of the store was empty.

What happened between the great Windows 95 launch and all the associated hoopla and today is a tribute to Microsoft’s marketing staff. In a word they blew it and you need to go back a few years to see why.

Windows 95 and 98 used calendar years as part of the version and that changed for consumers with the release of Windows ME, you remember that OS don’t you, ME who, while at about the same time they were courting the corporate community with Windows 2000 as if these were the people who would run out to the local PC store or vendor and buy like there was no tomorrow. Take note that a lot of consumer goods are marketed with the year as a selling point …. “Here is the new 2007 version” as if last year’s model is horribly obsolete, but the ploy works like a charm and that why sales people like it.

This time around Microsoft released Vista to the corporate folks late last year and to us consumers today. Why to business users first I have no idea, the local hospital is still advertising jobs openings for technicians who know Windows 95 and 98, no mention of ME or XP.

Not surprisingly most corporate types take years to adopt a new version of Windows and for good reasons as all there applications must continue to run flawlessly and the change over must not cause major headaches. So around 2009 or 2010 Vista should be in use in the corporate community.

On the other hand there are millions upon millions of home users who could upgrade to Vista immediately if Microsoft had changed its marketing strategy in such a way as to put some hype and incentive to do so. Guess they will have to wait another five years and call it Windows 2012.

The 4th D

DP World, I been sitting back and watching the flap over DP World managing several U.S. ports. In addition to that DP just announced this little gem:
http://www.dpiterminals.com/mainpages.asp?PSID=1
This should heat things up even more.

But then again almost everything we buy is made outside of the United States. Just the other day I went shopping and after I came back home the though occurred to me to look and see where each item was made. Yes they had names of U.S. based companies but none of the products were made in the U.S. An energy saving lamp being sponsored by and sold at less than normal prices by the former Governor Cody of New Jersey was made in China. The Energizer ‘bunny’ batteries were made in Japan. A Fruit of the Loom sweat shirt was made in Honduras. A Jerzees brand T-shirt made in Honduras. Another brand of T-shirt was made in Nicaragua. The Master Lock for my shed was assembled in Mexico.

So with these and a whole host of other products made everywhere but in the U.S.A., doesn’t make sense to have foreign company such as Dubai run the ports that import all these foreign made goods or does it?

Three D’s

I heard it on the news, all within the last three days.

Don Knots:
Don Knotts, TV's Barney Fife, Dies at 81
http://entertainment.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=216727

Dennis Weaver:
Dennis "McCloud" Weaver dies at 81
http://www.star-ecentral.com/tvnradio/tracks/tracks.asp?file=archives/tracks/2006/2/28DennisMcCl&date=2/28/2006

Darin McGavin:
Darin “Kolchak” McGavin dies at 83
http://www.spielbergfilms.com/news022606b.html

Will your digital photos still be around for your grandchildren?

Recently there was a discussion of the quality of film versus digital media on PC World’s blog site: http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/001323.html

I have been using film cameras and computers since the 1960’s and here is my insight on this issue.

Let see now, you bought that great top of the line digital camera, stored the photos on the best quality CD/DVD money can buy and let’s say the CD/DVD is still good 50 years from now.

I still have a 35mm camera I bought in the early 70’s; I also have paper tape used to load Fortran (a popular programming language in the 70’s, all but dead now) on an early computer, guess which of these items still works. I have a slightly newer model camera from around 1980 and 8 inch floppy disks, again guess which of these items still works. I bought a still newer camera about the time 5.25 floppies were popular, I use the boxes from the 5.25 floppies to store my CD-R(s) in.

The point is that all my old digital media is all but useless just like that CD/DVD will be when your grandchildren try to find a device to load and read today’s digital storage media. Will film be surpassed in quality, most certainly? Will we be able to use what we stored from that digital camera 50 years from now is the big question.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today we celebrate the life, times and dreams of Martin Luther King. But let me start by going back a few years to when John F. Kennedy was killed. Every year for a long time on the anniversary of JFK’s dead the media would ask if you remembered where your where when you heard the news that Kennedy was killed. My answer is yes, I can still remember where I was driving in my car and most likely can still mark the spot on the road to within a few feet when I heard the news on the car radio.

I have never heard this question asked about MLK’s death. No I can not remember where I was at the time, but I can remember with perfect clarity what went through my mind when I heard the news.

Imagine if you will a room with no furniture. In the center of the room towards the back wall is a single candle, it’s light illuminating the walls and ceiling. Slowly the flame starts to go out, it’s light receding back towards the candle, the walls nearest you slowly getting darker as the flame grows smaller. Smaller and smaller the flame becomes, as if in slow motion the light in the room seams to be going in toward the candle as the walls get darker. The flame finally goes out and the room is now totally dark, with nothing visible to your eyes.

That was the moment in time when I heard that Martin Luther King, Jr. had died.

Re-Bloging

In my January 2005 blog I mentioned outsourcing, so just like re-gifting I'll repost my old blog with a small update (new gift rap).

Outsourcing Is Bad

There are a number of companies that believe that Outsourcing is the key to profitability and the cure for all ills. If fact, the ideal goal would be to outsource all U.S. based jobs to countries with significantly lower wage rates. The logic would be that with no employees to pay, except for a privileged few, there would be nearly infinite profit.

But wait, with no employed U.S. citizens, who would have any money to buy their products, certainly not the people employed at their outsource locations as they are paid too low of a wage to afford what they make.

Think this is all a bad joke, take a look around your house and see how many item you own that are still made in the United States. Oh sure the name may be that of a company based here, but where is the item actual made?

For my money any company that outsourcers more than 50% of there product or gross earnings should not longer be considered U.S. based and therefore are subject to tariffs and other trade restrictions so as to truly level the playing field.

Fair Trade

2006 - GM and its parts suppliers are now in deep trouble, what was once known as 'The Big Three' auto makers may be in a short time mean a group of football teams, not U.S. auto makers.

Second Term Presidents

In 1951 the Twenty-second Amendment of the Constitution set a two-term limit on how many times a person shall be elected to the office President of the United States.

Ever since then each president who was re-elected has had problems that were significant enough that the chances are they would not be re-electable even if they could run for a third term. Could this be the jinks of the 22nd Amendment.

Many reasons could be offered as to why things seem to go down hill. It could be they try too hard on leaving a ‘Legacy’ or by now the media has had enough time to dig up some dirt. Not to mention that no sooner than they have won the election and they are already called a Lame Duck President. Even their own party will gives him grief on proposed legislation. By the second term the charm has worn off and reality sets in. In the case of President Bush the past few months have given us a Supreme Court nomination failure, Katrina, Fema, a spy in the White House and Bush using the No Such Agency to spy on us.

I propose a change to the amendment that would allow for no limit on terms as it was so stated in the original un-ammended constitution. However the third term would require more than a simple majority of the popular vote (and the electorial college requirements), say 56% of the popular vote and the four term would require 60% of the vote to win the election. Raising the bar would give each second term president real goal in order to win our vote and be re-elected.