Solomonster

Can you believe it? The FDA finally couldn't fight the science, anymore, and finally made the decision to offer the Morning After pill to women without the intervention of a pharmacist or clergyman! Imagine treating people like adults and letting them make their own moral decisions! I know, I know: This may sound like heresy in some quarters where even accepting Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior isn't a decision left to the individual, but out here in the real world, it's important to treat people with a little respect for their own wishes.

I was so angry when the FDA refused to employ any science in its faith-based governing when it refused to release this tool to the public, solely on the grounds that it would encourage promiscuity. What bullshit!

Anyway, I guess I've got a productive day to start, right? I'll leave the rest of this to others to celebrate online, and I'll do it in real life, myself.

R-U-ON is still in beta, but I'm really excited about this little tool. It runs as a service on your Windows/Linux/Solaris/Mac -based computer and, depending on which free-during-the-beta version of the agent software you install, it will monitor your computer for some basic health alerts and availability, or whether that machine can ping other devices on your network, or whether a given process is still running, or even if the keyboard / mouse are accessed. Nifty, nifty, free-for-now, tool.


Technorati Tags: r-u-on, network monitor, geek, remote

Of course I've seen these, before, but I forget that others haven't seen this awfully useful stuff!  MS's website is packed with extremely useful tools that most people don't even think to investigate ("site" doesn't really begin to describe the amount of resources they've got there, actually.  WebWorld might be closer to the ballpark!).  They might not think to investigate it because "it's not their job" is probably going through their minds.  Curiosity and an interest in making the most of the tools available are really qualities you find in IT people more than other business professionals, I guess.  Maybe that's why I'm impressed with non-techies who possess those qualities, too.

Anyway, in addition to the training tools FIT refers to, below, I've got to add my own recommendation that you go and check out Microsoft's online library of MS Office templates.  They're always coming out with new ones and they've got tons of old ones to point you in the right direction on a myriad of topics.  Don't reinvent the wheel, clean up Microsoft's and make it your own!

Friends in Tech » Blog Archive » Free Microsoft training

Free Microsoft training

Microsoft
offers some really great training for lots of products.  One resource
that I find especially useful to refer our clients to is the Microsoft Office Training.  This resource offers over 150 short and focused lessons on just about anything related to Microsoft Office Products.

These are not training topics that most system administrators would be
interested in for themselves (but they should be) but your users will
love you for showing them these resources.

For more technical resources I regularly review the Microsoft On-Demand Webcast
page .  I review these and send links to our techs for relevant webcast
topics.  You can get some very beneficial information from these.

The best part is they are all FREE!

Technorati Tags: ms office, templates, office training, webcasts, friends in tech

Technorati Tags: ms office, templates, office training, webcasts, friends in tech

... hello, Resources Global! I've decided to accept a contract position with Resources Global, "a new breed of Professional Services firm built for the project-oriented demands of today’s—and tomorrow’s— corporations." My first assignment is as a Technology Analyst at Longview Fibre in Longview, WA.

No, not exactly around the corner from Beaverton, but it's a great move for me in many ways. I'm really excited about this move. No, it's also not a permanent position, but it's excellent for me all the same. I'll be doing work on systems and environments that are much, much larger than what I've worked on, before, providing exposure to a whole new world of IT that I've never worked on, before. I've studied that stuff, best practices and the like, but never gotten a crack and implementing any of it! Eee!

Just delighted.

While at OSCON 2006, last month, I tried unsuccessfully to wrestle a clear description of the differences between these 2 system virtualization products from the VMWare reps, there. Essentially, all I got was the intended goals for the different applications, of the 2, not the practical differences. I couldn't understand why I would buy the $200 VMWare Workstation over the 0$ VMWare Server. While this excellent chart makes clear some VERY good reasons to go with the free product over the commercial product, it took some hunting to find a reason to go w/ Workstation. Short answer: MUCH better for programmers making changes and needing to roll back to previous snapshots of their work.

Anyway, you get this here, today, because I find it interesting!

Comparison - VMware Workstation 5.5.2 vs Server 1.0.0.pdf (application/pdf Object)

No, not Rosemary The Telephone Operator!

I mean that I saw a 5' tall Rosemary bush this morning!  Wow, that's a healthy shrub!  I have it at my house as a ground cover and love its smell, but it's a big ass bush, too!

Weird posting, but that's what you get without government regulation of these things.  Huh!


Technorati Tags: rosemary

Battlestar Galactica: Season 3 Teaser of "Battlestar Galactica"

Battlestar Galactica's teaser for their October return is here! Could BSG have gotten even darker???

Who'da guessed?  Growing up with the constant threat of being totally consumed by this ivy that grows -no, I'm not shitting you, here- a foot a DAY, EVERY day, it's a little backwards-feeling to consider this stuff as EDIBLE.  Growing up, I remember entire forests consumed by this stuff.  It will crawl up, over, and all around a tree and literally strangle the tree.  Time passes, the ivy stays, the tree rots and falls away, and all that is left is a kudzu-cave the shape of a tree.  Yah, pretty odd! 

But then, again, Kudzu is pretty odd, too.




Technorati Tags: kudzu

30 years after Pong was released I see an ad for the XBox360's new game of TableTennis.

Maybe Pong would have been better with a little Ping, too.


-Charlie

Sure, electric vehicles have come a long ways since golf carts, you probably know that the newest hybrid vehicles are taking advantage of US federal tax credits to build -not the most fuel-efficient cars, but- vehicles that Americans want to buy:  more powerful vehicles!  THAT's what the fucking tax credit's for, right?

Anyway, if you're in the know on the above paragraph, then you're surely in the know on Tesla Motors' little cart.  Unfortulately, I don't imagine that there's much room in here for the golf clubs, once the little thing's made it up to 60mph in 4.3 seconds.




Technorati Tags: tesla motors, cars, muscle hybrid, fast

Technorati Tags: tesla motors, cars, muscle hybrid, fast