Michael Pollard's Personal Website

Caution: The page linked above is political in nature. If you are sensitive to political commentary, please stay on this main Random Thoughts page.
 

 

2009-06-11 2:23PM

 

I have created a new blog at http://michaelpollard.blogspot.com. I am trying to find a way to have that blog listed here.

 

 

2009-05-08 7:20PM

 

Just saw Star Trek. I won't give any spoilers, but know this: Leave your expectations at the door. Right in the beginning scene, we see something significant that "should not have happened" if you're familiar with the original timeline. This is a different history being written, and things can, and frequently do, happen differently. While I won't say whether they do, it is possible for characters we see as major dying. We may see significant events happening that will affect all to come. Due to events early in the story, this is no longer the Star Trek you know - anything can happen. And it's a killer ride.

 

The theater owner (who frequently introduces new releases himself at the "only movie theater equipped with 1080p High-Definition Dolby Digital Cinema between Washington, DC and Knoxville, TN") said that at the premier showing yesterday afternoon, the audience gave a standing ovation, an occurrence he has only seen about five times in his 15 years. He described this movie as a work of genius. One attending said that principle filming has already been completed on the sequel, and a script has been completed on a third.

 

On a side note, another film by the same authors is coming in a month and a half - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

 

 

2009-05-06 3:35PM

 

Quick tech note. I hear lots of radio ads for GoToMyPC. Yes, the service is good. But LogMeIn has a free service as well as paid ones, and with more options. The free service offers the remote access most people use it for, for working from home (accessing your work computer), etc.

 

The paid Pro service adds stuff like file transfer (send files directly between computers without dealing with email), remote printing (print something from the remote computer and have it actually print where you are) and sound (hear the sounds the remote computer is creating, like for alerts, music, or video).

 

Further, LogMeIn Pro also has mini meeting. You don't have to pay extra for GoToMeeting if you only need a few people (I think five) in each meeting.

 

But what I like best is the free part. Even if I need the features of the Pro version for my work computer, I can still install the free version on my home computer, my laptop, my parents' computer (so I can help them with problems), etc.

 

And yes, LogMeIn, even the free version, is just as safe as GoToMyPC. They use more encryption than banks do, and you need two passwords, one for the LogMeIn account and one for the computer itself (which can be the existing username/password, if you have one). Even if someone hacks the LogMeIn account, they still can't get on your computer without your computer password.

 

For broader business use, they have support variations, business-level account administration, and so forth. And you can remotely access computers from many phones, if you can deal with the small screen. There's even an app for the iPhone.
 

 

2009-05-06 3:25PM

 

 

2009-05-04 11:00AM

 

 

 

2009-05-04 10:50AM

 

That was weird. For some reason, much of my page was changed to a single huge text hyperlink. Fixed it...

 

 

2009-04-30 4:30PM
 
I interviewed yesterday with a local company that offers call center services to clients. If a company needs a call center, maybe for customer service, order tracking, technical support or something similar, they handle it. My job would be Help Desk Administrator. It would be a good job, the type I would probably like long-term, and convenient to both home and church.
 
I also interviewed by phone for an IT services company in Gray. The job there is Network Administrator. It might be a longer drive (but a lot closer than the one in Marion was) and may not have as much variety as the other one for now, but an IT services company has the potential for a lot more variety in the long term. And they provide (require) lots of regular training, which is a real benefit since training is expensive. And I want more training anyway - I just ordered a set of certification training materials. It's expensive, and the tests are also expensive, but it's valuable.
 
Both jobs would be good, and I would enjoy both. Let's see which way God leads, if either one.
 
 
2009-04-30 1:45PM
 
Microsoft has announced that Windows 7 has moved to the Release Candidate stage. This is the version that will probably go for sale in a few months.
 
Better yet, while only those who have paid subscriptions to Microsoft software arrangements (MSDN, TechNet and TechBeta) can get it now, on May 5 anybody can download it for free. And you can use it until June 1 2010, while MS pre-release versions usually only work for six months or so. You'll probably have a month or so to download it for free, but you can get as many copies as you want and run all of them for over a year. (Warning - installing an operating system, especially from a download, takes a little technical know-how...)
 
I've been using playing with Windows 7 on an older computer for a couple of months, and it runs fine, albeit slowly, on a computer that was built when XP was new. XP with all its updates didn't run great, so I sure couldn't expect Win7 to. But it does run fine.
 
Win7 has the same basics as Vista, but done right. That is, it's much faster, doesn't require as fast of a computer (though Vista runs fine on most computers made in the past four years), and adds some new features. The interface adds to Vista, with some simplification and some things that you might wonder why that wasn't there a LONG time ago, like being able to "maximize" a program to half-screen by dragging it to one side, so you can easily put two programs side-by-side. And like with Maximizing, you can then restore the window to its previous size and place.
 
New to the Release Candidate is an XP virtual machine. In the Professional and Ultimate versions, you can actually run programs designed for XP in XP, and without having to pay extra for a copy of XP. It's intended for businesses that have older programs by companies that may have gone out of business or otherwise just not updated their programs in several years for the current tech. But this will be a real plus for gamers with older games that wouldn't run right on Vista, but they'll have to get the Ultimate version.
 
 
2009-04-30 1:00PM
 
I wish Office Live's text editor had spell-checking. I just found, and corrected, a number of spelling mistakes in my blog. I'll need to be more careful - just an absence of red wavy underlines doesn't mean it's right. And the editor embeds HTML code, so copy-and-paste to Word doesn't work. Saving the changes then copy-and-paste from the final web page does work, but it exposes an in-progress entry before it's completed. Let's see what options we might have...
 
Update: I can use the Google Toolbar if I manually open the editing session in a regular window. The Office Live editor normally opens in a new window with all toolbars disabled. That will increase quality while reducing needed effort and public exposure to typos.
 
 
2009-04-26 9:36PM:
 
"Swine Flu" is going around some areas in the US.
 
Some experts believe it is a created flu, since it has parts of four current, but uncommon, flu viruses from four entirely different parts of the world, and has characteristics of the Spanish Flu that was an epidemic in the 1920s. Several groups are known to have been working on recreating the Spanish Flu virus for research purposes. This Swine Flu is contagious to humans, unlike most of the original flu strains, and it can be deadly to otherwise healthy people. Maybe it was released intentionally, maybe it was accidental; it doesn't matter much now that it's out.
 
But it is still a flu. Wash your hands regularly and with soap, particularly after using the restroom or shaking hands with other people and before eating. Use hand sanitizer - it's made with alcohol, and germs can't get resistant to that. Eat healthily and exercise to keep your natural resistance up.
 
If you get sick, take care of it right away with plenty of fluids and bed rest. Keep an eye on any fever to make sure that it doesn't get too high. If you get a fever that won't get under control, see a doctor immediately, not the next day. While antibiotics won't help, there are now some antiviral medications. They may or may not help against this, but they could be your best chance for recovery if your body can't fight the flu on its own.
 
And remember that the normal flu vaccines can't help you - they are designed for a few specific strains, not this. All they will do is weaken your immune system by giving you parts of flu viruses. They are designed to build an immunity against those strains, but they also weaken most people in the process, potentially making you more vulnerable to strains that they don't work against.
 
Be careful now, and don't wait for any formal government announcements. Experts say that this could be a world-wide pandemic within days. Maybe it won't, and maybe it won't amount to anything at all, but it doesn't hurt to be ready. We need to do that anyway.
 
 
2009-04-25 9:44PM:
 
Wow, finally a tech review entry.
 
I needed cheap/free long distance service to get more serious in my job search, and was considering my options. There were the software-only options like Yahoo at 2c/minute, but I'd prefer flexibility. I was seriously considering a magicJack, a $40 device that gives unlimited domestic calling for $20/year and includes the first year of service. It also includes some basic features like Caller ID and voice mail, but I was concerned about poor reviews, both for call quality and customer service. Comments indicated that one out of five calls tends to get dropped, and since this is for my job search, that concerned me. Poor sound and dropped calls are not professional. Maybe the problems were due to poor Internet service, and I have fiber optic to the house (offered as a service by the city of Bristol VA, BVU/OptiNet), so that might not be a problem. But it was a major concern. I was going to try it though, comforted by the return policy. Not magicJack's policy - Best Buy's policy. magicJack is reportedly horrible at actually coming through on refunds.
 
Well, I got to Best Buy and asked about their VoIP devices. He pointed out Vonage (the old stand-by, been around a while but is expensive), then the device I'm about to talk about, then the magicJack I came for. When I saw the new contender, I was concerned because I hadn't heard about it before. The sales guy pointed me at the company web site. It turns out that the executives have major experience, both in tech companies and in stuff like this. The founder is from Cisco, and the heads are from notables like Lexar, Sling Media and Apple (and others from Cisco). Oh, and the co-founder of TiVo is on the board of directors.
 
The company? ooma. Yes, that's all lower-case.
 
Bottom line? I just got hooked up with an ooma "core" system. They promote it as a "free home phone service", subtitled "unlimited US calling with no monthly fees". How do they do this? Simple. You buy equipment up front, and they try to upsell you other services and accessories to go with it. It already includes most of the stuff you probably want though.
 
At this point, I'll also mention that they offer more local calling areas than many (including magicJack). When you sign up (and you can look at the coverage before you sign up), they don't just ask for your area code like most do; they ask for your area code and prefix (xxx-xxx), and offer a number that is local to you even if it has a different prefix. magicJack just wanted the area code, and a quick chat with support confirmed that they don't offer any exchanges local to me. The number I got with ooma has a prefix that even the phone book didn't have, but a quick online search showed that it is owned by our phone company. Note: They have limited numbers. After I signed up, I checked again and they now don't have any numbers in my local VA area now - looks like I snagged the last one they have today. I guess they have to get more numbers. If this was the case before I signed up, I'd still have two choices; Bristol TN is local, and they have numbers available there, or I could port my current number.
 
What you get: For $249 (or less, if it's on sale; BestBuy.com has them for $229 and I had the store match that), you get a "core" set that isn't as basic as it sounds. The main item you get a base unit termed a "hub". Unlike the magicJack, the hub connects directly to your network Ethernet connection, such as on a DSL or cable modem. That means it works even if your computer doesn't. Even if your computer breaks, gets shut down, restarts, or goes to sleep. If you only have one Ethernet jack on your modem, no problem; the "hub" is a hub in more ways than one; just plug the computer's network cable into the second Ethernet port and the connection will be passed through without any slowdown. The set also comes complete with all the cables you should need, and maybe some you don't for your situation. (I realize they're not technically "modem"s, but that's the term everybody uses...)
 
And unlike anything else I've seen in its class, it also connects to your regular phone jack. This has three uses:
 
First, If you choose to keep a landline phone service, the ooma hub will pass 911 calls through the phone line for local response. ooma offers E-911 service, but local response is supposed to be faster, so they use that if it's available. (0 for Operator calls also get rerouted, since ooma doesn't have operators.) And the transfer is two-way; if you get the Premier service, they'll help you change your old service to only have the minimum you need for 911 and backup service, but with forward-on-busy, so if someone calls the old line and it's busy the call will forward to ooma. Of course that's optional, but it will help make full use of ooma's features.
 
Second, if the Internet connection or power goes out, the ooma will fall back to the POTS landline. Of course, this will only help in a power outage if your phone doesn't need power. But that's the situation anyway; I have a wired phone in addition to the cordless ones in case the power goes out.
 
Third, the hub acts as a hub in another way. It will connect through your phone wiring to any "scout" devices you may get. They basically act as remote units; you plug a scout into a phone jack elsewhere in the house, then plug a phone into the scout and use your ooma service from somewhere else in the house. Even better, you can actually use two phones on a single hub at once, effectively giving two lines on the same phone number. The second line requires the Premier service though, at least beyond a 60-day trial period. And - big note here - the "core" system includes a scout!
 
My impressions: First, they spent time designing the packaging. That means they took their time to polish it. Everything was laid out nicely, and clear covers were over the main devices for presentation. They included all the cables for every normal use, though without extras. The network cable is a fancy flat ribbon cable, not a cheapo. The power adapters specify their efficiency ratings. The tops of the units are brushed aluminum with clear buttons that light up when appropriate. With white plastic on the sides, giving a somewhat Mac-ish appearance. (Or just a slick appearance - Apple is known for their good designs.) There's even a brightness control on the side! That's a nice touch if you have it in your bedroom or entertainment room (or any other place you want to be dark), since there's a service status light - blue when working, red when the Internet is out. The phone has a unique dial tone that starts with a five-tone sequence and fades into a traditional dial tone - you know that you have an Internet connection, but you also have a traditional tone for a fax machine to recognize. The tune is actually kind of catchy. And speaking of faxes - unlike others, while they can't explicitly support such, they say that a fax shouldn't have a problem. They did a nice job on this. And they have a toll-free support number with long hours, until 8PM Pacific, 11PM Eastern, and even hours on the weekends. magicJack doesn't even have a phone number; it's chat-only.
 
Other services: Caller ID, block outgoing Caller ID (per-call), block or send anonymous calls to voicemail, call back last call received, call waiting, voice mail, E-911, online account management, "Broadband Answering Machine" - voice mail access directly from the hub and scout as well as by phone (inside or outside - just call yourself and press *) or web portal, and online call logs on both inbound and outbound calls.
 
Premier services: $12.99/month or $99/year: Enhanced call waiting (ring other connected phones), second line, three-way conferencing, screen calls and pick up calls during voicemail, email voicemail notification, send ringing or answered calls to voicemail, one-touch do-not-disturb, second number with separate voicemail (in any calling area), specify phones to ring, custom rings based on caller.
 
Negatives: 411 is 99c/call, pay calls are blocked (if you see that as a negative), and there's not a software client. International calls are not included; they have per-minute fees, but they're low, as in 3c/minute to Mexico, 1.4c to Canada, 1.9c to UK and 2.2c to France, Germany and Spain.
 
My experience so far: Those I've called said that the call was better than a cell phone but not as good as a wired phone. Which is not a problem since so many people use cell phones, even as their only phone. I'm checking to see if my Dish Network DVR will work with it; if so, I plan to drop my phone line and recover the unit's cost in about a year, just based on the phone service base rate, not including the long distance I bought the ooma for.
 
Update: With a *99 prefix, recommended for faxing, the Dish Network DVR seems to work fine. I'll give it some time, say a month, just to make sure it stays. Of course, most VoIP services don't even offer that option; they just say faxes won't work. The option probably reduces the compression, increasing the bandwidth requirements, but not beyond what typical high-speed Internet can do. As a note, they do require 256Kb up/384Kb down, but that's common now. It's also why they recommend connecting the computer to the other jack on the hub; it uses QoS protocols to prioritize call traffic so the computer isn't slowed down notably but also doesn't cause quality problems for calls.
 
Update 02009-4-28: Caller ID can be incorrect for up to 14 days, though normally within five business days, since ooma has to have it transferred. This is the case even with a new account, since the caller details are still being transferred from a previous user. The first day it showed "Bristol Virginia"; now it shows "Unknown name 432766440247".
 
On the other hand, phone support was very prompt; the menus were simple and there was no hold time - I went straight to a person after I selected that I was already an owner and that I had already activated the hub.
 
And email voicemail notification is available with the standard plan. Attached messages require the Premier plan, but notification is free. I also confirmed (and updated above) that you can check your messages from any phone - just call yourself and press *.
 
 
2009-04-03 02:47AM:
 
So what, I'm up late. I work well late. Besides, I don't have any place to be in the morning. Later in the day, but not in the morning.

 

Concerning the "not working now" part, I have been trying to keep busy. I mentioned the working on church video; there's a lot to do with that. Earlier in the week I reinstalled Vista on my main computer - for several reasons, including improved flexibility. (Also to get around a few "known issues" in Vista and one with my hardware. Things most people wouldn't notice, but I'd rather eliminate.) Last week I installed Windows 7 on my old XP computer. And I've set up two Windows 98 computers for handy email and online search access (with antivirus, but nothing critical since security updates aren't available). I like having a computer in the kitchen, so I can have complex calculations (more than a simple calculator, anyway), like converting an entire recipe to a different quantity, or to find with an instruction to microwave something for x time as y watts, how long it needs to cook at z watts instead, or to set different timers for each thing I'm fixing.

 

Windows 7? Windows 7 is currently in beta testing. It's generally much faster than Vista, and more stable. In fact, it's often faster than XP, and usually faster than XP on modern hardware. I have it on a computer that I put together when XP was new, an Athlon XP 1700+, roughly equivalent to a Pentium 4 1.7GHz, with 1GB RAM. And integrated GeForce 2 (!) graphics. It runs a little slow, but it does fine. (It wasn't that fast on XP, now with all the updates that have been added on top.) It actually runs faster than my Win98 box with a PIII 533MHz with 512MB RAM. Though that box isn't a fresh reinstall, so the comparison might not be fair. Win7 also has some nice new features, though probably not enough to justify upgrading from Vista. It's real benefit will be with netbooks, which can't run Vista.

Vista? Yes, Vista Ultimate 64-bit. Why?

1 - Vista has been out for 2 ½ years now. It's the only authorized, mainstream new-install version of Windows. (Yes, I know many businesses buy Vista and install XP instead, and you can get XP Home on netbooks.) If nothing else, I work in the industry, and I need to be familiar with it.

 

2 – Again, Vista has been out for 2 ½ years now. Most of the problems it had when it was new have since been fixed in the updates, including SP1. (XP also had problems until SP1.) And many of the problems weren't with Vista anyway, but with lack of manufacturers producing drivers (which was also a problem with XP) and for them putting out a number of drivers with problems. Most of the manufacturers have since straightened up their act. In the past, many companies have delayed use of a new version of Windows has its first service pack, and Vista has that (and has for some time now). Though I don't expect many businesses to go with Vista now, since Windows 7 is about to get released, probably within the next few months. And it looks really good.

 

3 – I'm a bit of a geek. I like playing with the latest and greatest, as long as I can get it reasonably. When I got my copy, I had a job, and I still waited until I could find a legitimate, unopened, retail full-version Vista Ultimate (because I wanted both 32 and 64-bit versions since 64-bit drivers were hard to find at the time) for about half-price. Windows isn't cheap, after all. And Microsoft hasn't gotten down friendly pricing yet, though they may be learning, if Office Home and Student is any clue (frequently available for $99 for three licenses). Now just give me five licenses of Vista Ultimate for $199 like Apple does with Mac OS... (Or a personal TechNet/MSDN... For $300 I could install Vista Ultimate, Office Ultimate and Visual Studio on three homebrew computers, install XP Pro and Office Ultimate on five boxes (currently Win98), and set up a Windows Server 2008 box with Exchange 2007, Automatic Backup, IIS, Terminal Services and SharePoint Services... Like I said, I'm a bit of a geek – I like a computer in each room for handy email and lookups, and I'd rather have fully-patched XP than Win98 on boxes that can't handle Vista.

 

Oh, and I'm also cleaning up the house. Partly because I really need to, and partly because I might have to sell it and move to Georgia.

 
 
2009-04-02 11:57PM:
 
OK, so I haven't updated this in a while. Those who also follow me on Facebook know some of this: I did work the contract for one month, 02/03-03/02. Then the contract ended and I wasn't told why. That's fine; it's part of the temporary contract employment game - any party can end the contract at any time without giving any reason. It gets frustrating sometimes, but it goes with the territory. Sometimes there's internal politics. Sometimes an internal employee says he assigned some job to the contractor, without actually telling the contractor about it; it was really his own job, but he didn't want to take the heat when he didn't get it done. Sometimes an internal employee accuses the contractor of some policy violation that didn't exist because he was afraid of his own job being outsourced (that happened for me once in 1998 - my boss knew it, but didn't want to make waves with his client). Sometimes it's as simple as a budget cut. But it's all speculation; even my contract agent wasn't told why the contract was ended.
 
I had today a computer screener (pre-employment online test) for the Gwinnett County Department of Education (north metro Atlanta) as a technology support technician. Despite being online, the screener had to be taken in-house; I came to stay with my sister for the night, since she lives nearby. I can't say anything about the screener content under an NDA, but I feel I did well. I think I would really like the job, if they offer it, for the school system, for the organization within the system (from the little I've seen so far), and for the job itself. The area also seems really nice, both for housing and for shopping/day-to-day living. We'll see in the next week whether I scored well on the test and whether I get called for a follow-up face-to-face interview.
 
As I mentioned, my sister lives nearby; she's about 6 miles from the Instructional Support Center, and if offered the job, I can stay with her until I can find my own place, which I would like to be nearby. It's also not far from where I lived for a number of years; maybe not close enough for church every week, but close enough for regular visits. (My parents would also like to relocate to the area, which would bring the whole family back in the same area; they are currently in Tennessee.) And while I might be posted to a different location, the main office is only about 15 minutes drive. (There are schools that would only be a 15 minute walk, nevermind drive...) My sister is really in the know about such things, and she says Gwinnett has one of the best school systems anywhere, not just in Georgia. (She knows people due to past political work, and she has her kids in the schools.) There are other places with a some good schools, but the Gwinnett schools are all good, not just a few of them. A second reference: my current church music director used to work for the Gwinnett school system, and he was positive about the system as well.
 
Oh, and I didn't get a TV at Circuit City. I went to the Kingsport store the last day they were open, and the last working TV sold while I was there. I went to the Johnson City store a couple of times, but the prices were still too high at the time (discount to low), and my contract ended right before I was going to go back for another trip. I did get some movies though, on the earlier trips... (I'll make do with my SD tube TV and my computer monitor.)
 
I'm trying to get as much done as I can on church video. I mentioned in my home page that I edit the church's weekly TV show. I'm also working to train a guy at church to take over (no names here for his privacy), but I don't want to put more on him than necessary.
 
 
2009-02-02 9:43AM:
 
After some additional clearances, I am to start work tomorrow. I won't be able to go into juvenile areas until the Child Protective Services clearance comes back, but I should be able to do anything else.
 
Now that I have income again, or will soon, I want to get a HDTV and make use of Circuit City going out of business.
 
 
2009-01-29 8:54AM:
 
My sister, Kellie Austin, helps businesses find their niche. This can make the difference between a wildly successful business and a spectacular flop. She's done this quite well in politics for some time now, but now she's transitioning to business clients. Her site is at skylinestrategy.com. (Keywords: Skyline Strategy, strategic, marketing, busness)