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Category: Personal

Blogging from Beyond the Pall

Blogging from Beyond the Pall

Andrew Olmsted, an Army Major, fellow St. John’s High School alum, and blogger reaches back from his untimely death to with reassuring words. My best wishes to all his friends and family… This is an entry I would have preferred not to have published, but there are limits to what we can control in life, and apparently I have passed one of those limits. And so, like G’Kar, I must say here what I would much prefer to say in…

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I’m Back…

I’m Back…

After a long (and still on going, but thankfully, via Webex Access Anywhere now) project in DC, and a few days off, I’m back. I’ve got a touch of computer claw going on today, due to a little overindulgence in Guitar Hero III and Lego Star Wars, on the new Playstation 3 that Santa brought. So now the tree is down (removed at 3pm Xmas day, by a wife who had her fill of Xmas spirit), and I’m back at…

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Why Frequent Testing of Ecommerce Apps is Important

Why Frequent Testing of Ecommerce Apps is Important

Today is the 10th anniversary of wedding 2.0 – and I’m in D.C., which really annoys my wife to no end.  So I did what many of you are doing this holiday season, I went online to order flowers. In the past, I’ve used FTD for flowers.  So I went to their site this morning, and found a suitable bouquet (wife 2.0 doesn’t like roses…) and tried to check out.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t a buy now button.  A site error…

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Already a Rough Winter

Already a Rough Winter

I returned home from DC last Friday to find the family car straddling the stone wall at the edge of the driveway, blocking it, and the drive unplowed.  Apparently my wife decided that she needed to go out for bread and milk during last Thursday’s storm.  After 3 hours of dissembling said wall and digging out Saturday morning I was finally able to extract the car. Sunday’s storm left something like 4 inches by the time I hauled myself out…

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Boeing’s 12,000lb Chemical Laser

Boeing’s 12,000lb Chemical Laser

Boeing has a 12,000lb chemical laser ready for testing that they’ve mounted on a c-130h.  The shark mount version will apparently be rev 2.0…(via slashdot) This is actually a huge technological leap.  While I don’t proposed to say I know much about lasers, my former college roommate Tim Armstrong told me in the 1980’s that the problems of such lasers were tremendous, not the least of which is trying to maintain a focused beam of light through and atmosphere filled…

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The Effect of Low Hosting Cost on Website Hosting Service

The Effect of Low Hosting Cost on Website Hosting Service

Since 2000, the cost of website hosting has dropped like a stone.  Where we used to pay over $100 a month for hosting on some of my sites (RT was once closer to $1k a month to host), costs have dropped to the point that I got a $2.99 per month deal from 1and1.com a couple months ago.  They’re back up to a whopping $3.99 a month now. I had a discussion on a jet last week with a fellow…

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The Disposable Computer

The Disposable Computer

I was looking at a virus riddled computer for a friend the the other day and we pondered what direction to take with the machine. My first suggestion was to have him take it to one of the computer services, like the Nerd Herd or something. When he priced them out, he found they charge $65 for initial diagnosis and if they need to reload the OS, it’s usually about $250. The machine is a couple years old, and there…

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The Last of the Subscription Sites

The Last of the Subscription Sites

CNet’s got an article up about the Consumer Report site – one few subscriptions sites that is making it work (although I should note we were saying that last year this time about both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, both of whom have either dropped or will soon drop site subscription). The only other place subscriptions seem to thrive is on the nasty side of the net….Pr0n. For a decade, however, Consumer Reports has charged Internet…

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