Just my Opinion...

Credit Mess

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:14:34 -0500

So the US and for that matter the rest of the world is in a giant credit mess. Too bad they can’t contact someone like Credit Hurts so that all the debt could be consolidated into one lump payment at a reduced interest rate!

Today’s news brings the highlight of the government bailout to $150 billion for AIG Insurance. That is like everyone in America writing a check for $500. I do hope that some of that money goes back to the treasury - I believe that our taxes are high enough already without having to pay for this disaster.

It amazes me that our government is spending so voraciously as if there were no end to the funds. It is now estimated that the US government will need to borrow over $1 trillion. That is: $1,000,000,000,000.00 or for more perspective it is $3,333 for every man, woman and child in the US. So if we add that to the current national debt of $10,622,166,941,631.68 (as of 11/07/2008 according to http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/ we each owe the US government approximately $38,740.51. The interest every year is over $400 billion. (yep another $1500 or so per year for each of us).

At least overall the interest rate on our national debt is around 5%. But think of what $400 billion could do if we didn’t have this debt. What if we could renegotiate the debt to 2.5% and free up $200 billion per year.

We could feed more of the world’s hungry, provide a better education to our children, or enhance our freeways and bridges.

Well I guess you sometimes have to throw good money after bad. And if you are in the US congress you have a pretty good idea of how to do just that.

The rest of us will be contacting Credit Hurts.

Valet Thieves

Tue, 5 Aug 2008 21:13:08 -0400

So we just returned from a family vacation where we took a drive up the coast and into Maine. Along the way we stopped in New York City for one night - primarily to go to the top of the Empire State Building.

None of us had ever been and it truly was a great experience. We were lucky that we arrived the day before and it had rained. The morning we went to the top the sky was clear and we could see for miles!

If you have never been to New York City before there is something you need to know - it is expensive! The hotel we stayed at was the Embassy Suites. At $400 per night (luckily we had a voucher for a free night). The hotel was downtown near Battery Park and right around the corner from the World Trade Center - Ground Zero site.

The Ground Zero site was incredibly moving. We were amazed at how choked up we were looking at where the WTC once stood. Everyone should visit and never forget. We took the time to talk to our kids about the evil people who committed such a horrific act and why our courageous military is still working to secure our freedom around the world.

Now, since we drove we parked our car at the hotel overnight. The hotel only had valet parking available at $65.00 per night. We did check other parking arrangements and found that the convenience of being at the hotel was worth the extra $10 that we could have saved at a nearby parking garage.

The part that really gets me is that we tipped the valet - both on leaving the car and on picking it up - a total of $10.00 (perhaps that is low but to me $5 to park my car or retrieve it is more than adequate). However, the valet decided to also go into our glovebox and take the quarters from our change holder!

Am I too upset? Should I just think that this is what happens? I don’t think so. I think that when you pay $65 for parking and $10 in tips that you should expect that what was in your car would be there when you return. I could understand if someone smashed the window and stole the money but to just take it! It is like I paid them to take it. That gets my gall!

I am going to call the hotel and see what they will do - though I am not expecting much. Perhaps they will surprise me.

I am grateful that the rest of our vacation was filled with fun and good times. Maine in July is beautiful and I recommend a good road trip to see our marvelous country. Get off the beaten path and see what you can see.

Trip down Computer memory lane

Mon, 4 Aug 2008 11:40:47 -0400

For some reason I wound up on the computerhistory.org website. For a computer nerd like me it was great fun. It reminded me of when I was a teenager reading magazines I acquired from a local video game producer - Byte, Interface Age, Computerworld, Datamation and Compute!

My Uncle’s Dad (a really nice man) owned an Osborne computer which I got to play around on. This was the first “portable computer” for the average Joe. At 24 pounds it was anything but light. Compare that with today’s ultra-lights weighing in under 3 pounds! (Mac Airbook anyone...)

I remember watching as he filled in numbers and formulas in Visicalc. My first experience with a spreadsheet. We also played around in BASIC a little bit - wow, programming is fun I thought!

While I never finished a degree in programming I have had years of experience as an amateur with classes in BASIC, Pascal, dBase, C++, and Assembly language. And then self teaching HTML and web development; and a stint with Real Basic.

I often think that I should have stuck with it and become a full time programmer. It is something I enjoy doing and in my current job I get to help a great deal of software development companies in diagnosing issues in their interface programming to our companies programming interfaces for scanners.

Back to the computer history - I often think about the computers I have seen come and go: DEC, Rainbow; NEC PCs (my first real computer the NEC PC 8001 running CP/M) Timex Sinclair (my first toy computer the Timex Sinclair 1000 with 2KB internal RAM and the worst 16KB RAM expansion module ever!) the Commodore Vic-20, Commodore 64 - some of the computers I first programmed on for a class. IMSAI, Pertec, Northstar, Heathkit (some assembly required) and so many others that were early systems on the scene.

Now I think of the more modern computers I have owned or worked on: Apple II, Franklin Ace 1000 (an Apple II knockoff), Apple Macintosh - models ranging from the original Mac, Mac II Mac SE, Mac Quadra 605, Quadra 630, Performa, iMac, iBook, Mac G4, Mac Quad G5, PowerBook G4, MacBook Pro. IBM PC (the original with the 8086 and 8088 chips) PC compatibles ranging from Intel 286, 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium II, Pentium III, Pentium IV, Celeron the AMD compatible chips.

Do you remember when you had to have a math coprocessor chip if you wanted to get accuracy in your math calculations? Now processors have specific sections built in to do the same thing only much faster and with ever increasing precision.

Now we all wonder what the future will hold? My brother-in-law is an electrical engineer that works on chip design for a very large well known electronics company. He was just telling us about a meeting at a customers site where his competitor came in with the old technology and some band aids to get it farther along. The competitor was touting how my Bro-in-law’s companies technology as unproven at which point my bro-in-law asked the customer to step into the other room to see the technology working if they had any doubts. The technology was a dramatic new approach that did not incorporate any of the old technology but a whole new approach to take the project to the next level.

This is what is in store for us all - in meetings everywhere from hundreds and thousands of companies - new technology presentations which are leading to sales leading to new products that will affect all of our lives.

What a Week!

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:50:17 -0500

Well, I have not had a chance to write many entries as I have been working too much. Trying to finish up year end financials for the company; taking inventory; and then having a huge homeowner meeting in my community.

The homeowner meeting was about a proposed development going in across from our housing complex. The development is quite large in scope consisting of 1200 condos and town homes and 500,000 square feet of office and retail space.

The developers are very nice and one actually lives in a nicer neighbourhood that this development sits directly next to and portions would actually cross. This leads me to believe they want to do a top-notch job.

I am the president of our HOA and as such have been in contact with the developers and the community. So I am getting feedback from both sides very regularly.

Last night was the big meeting and it was exactly what I had expected. There was a large group of people that showed up to this public meeting espousing their views while not listening to what the developer was proposing. Every time the developer tried to talk these individuals would begin asking another question so the that nothing was actually learned.

The primary concern is that the land is very near a watershed for the entire area. This definitely needs to be protected and preserved for clean drinking water. However, we could not find out what steps would be taken and what the developer would commit to since they were basically not allowed to speak.

I finally had to yell out to everyone that instead of being reactive they should be proactive with the developer to provide concerns and work with them to mitigate those concerns. -- That did stop them from their banter and hopefully provided food for thought.

Now please do not misunderstand - I am all for protecting our environment but with logical sensibility to it. I do not just assume that any development is bad because it disturbs land (if everyone thought that way we would still be living in caves).

What I had truly hoped for was that the residents of my community (and not everyone in attendance was from my community) had the opportunity to get informed, get involved and get interested.

I think instead people got agitated, frustrated and heated because all they got a chance to see and hear was the incessant whining of these wackos (these same wackos go to every development or public hearing issue and espouse the same rhetoric).

So far I like the idea of the new development and hope the developer works with us if they get all their approvals. Right now they are fighting an uphill battle since they have to have land use amendments and rezoning requests fulfilled. They are several years away so we will get lots of opportunity to see what happens.

Anyway, Just My Opion...

Photoshop plug-in for Canon iPF8100

Tue, 8 Jan 2008 21:46:10 -0500

Canon has developed a plug-in for adobe Photoshop that provides a direct link to the iPF8100. The iPF8100 brochure describes as:

“Print Plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop and
Digital Photo Professional support high-bit
depth workflows and 16-bit image processing
to virtually eliminate problems such as
posterization and banding”

While I have not yet worked with any 16 bit image needs, I have found the plug-in to be very useful.

The plug-in provides for an export feature to the Canon print driver though to a different interface. This interface is designed with photography and wide format printing needs in mind. For example taking photos and maximizing them to the roll paper dimensions.

We took a photo changed its resolution from 72 dpi to 180 dpi (a resolution common to use in wide format printing) using the image size function in Photoshop with bicubic resampling of the image. Then we exported the image to the Canon plug-in (under the File menu in Photoshop under Export).

After a moment of data exporting the plug-in window opens to a window with 5 tab settings: Main, Page Setup, Color Settings, Print History & Support.

Under “Main” we set our media type. We used Glossy Photographic roll paper in 44 inch width. We set an output profile to match the paper and chose a print mode; the options include Standard, High & High (High Precision) - essentially each option gets progressively better results, we did 2 prints one each in standard and High with no visually noticeable differences to the naked eye - however the Standard print used considerably less ink.

Next under “Page Setup” we chose Enlarged/Reduced Printing and selected “Fit Roll Paper Width” this enlarged the image we were printing to fit the width of the roll paper (we essentially printed a 43 in x 58 inch print). You can also choose portrait or landscape orientation options depending on the photo you are printing. there is also an option for borderless printing if your job requires it.

We have left the “Color Settings” options to their default settings. And under the “Print History” tab there is useful information and options to print information about the job. And of course under the “Support” tab there are options to consult the user manual or access the Canon website support page (this is very handy to have at your fingertips).

Overall the plug-in has provided excellent results so far and made it far easier to fit photos to roll paper margins. Also, the print dialog I find is easier to use then the standard print dialog you would work with using the standard print menu item instead of the export function.