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Thoughts and things I care to shareEntrepreneurship Calling
Mark Evans talks about the current entrepreneurial movement going on. I have to admit that I am more and more leaning towards that option as I think about the future of my career.
There are a lot of reasons that starting my own business is appealing. Mainly its because I’ve been at one place too long. A person fights the same battles every year, follow the same “leader” month after month, and it doesn’t seem to make a huge difference.
That’s not to say that being part of a large (or small) organization where you have no direct monetary involvement is the wrong choice for many. But I came from a consulting background. My core strengths are the ability to observe and advise on the best use of technology for an organization. These are not being used to their full advantage in an enterprise environment focused on a “maintenance mode” mentality.
The current move by many individuals to become their own boss, to become the decision maker, the marketing person, the finance person, and the billable worker has its appeal in the control over one’s life. By becoming an entrepreneur, you gain control over your life, and the direction of your career.
While, yes, you also take on the enormous responsibility of financial success or failure, critics also have to admit that it really is dependant on your effort in pursuing success. And when a person has the interest and desire to take control of their destiny, magical things can happen when they take the initiative.
Via: Mark Evans – It’s Raining Entrepreneurs
Fujitsu P1610 Now Shipping with Vista Business
I’ll admit I’ve been linking to jkOnTheRun a lot for news lately, but James and Kevin are simply on top of everything a mobile pro needs. I’ve been following James Kendrick’s use of his P1610 for several months and have to admit it’s currently my top choice for my next computer. My second choice would be a Samsung Q1P which happens to be Kevin Tofel’s current machine.
I’ll claim not to be a follower, but the P1610 has just crossed another threshold that makes it a sure bet for me. Fujitsu is now shipping the device with Windows Vista Business as an option to Windows XP. This is great news as James has talked about audio driver issues (here, here, here, and here) with his from-scratch Vista install. Hopefully, these are resolved in the shipping OEM install.
Via: jkOnTheRun – Fujitsu P1610 now available with Vista
CompUSA Closing Stores
According to this post over at jkOnTheRun, CompUSA is closing up to half of its brick and mortar stores. While customers should be able to clean up with discounts starting around 20% off, the big question to me is why.
Personally, I think this is a natural cycle for the computer industry. The consumer base has gotten comfortable with Internet purchasing of big-ticket items like computers and HD TVs among other things. At the same time, more and more technology products have been comoditized to the point that you can find almost everything you need at Wal-Mart, Target, or K-Mart. Not to mention long-time technology chains like BestBuy and Circuit City carrying everything from laptops, to cell phones, to car stereos, to HD TVs, to refrigerators, to… you get the point.
Trying to be a computer superstore when computing products are as common as toasters is a tough business. I’m not surprised that they are reducing the number of retail outlets when you factor it all in. Of course, this is my opinion of what’s happening, and did not contact CompUSA for any information on the topic, so take it for what its worth.
Via: jkOnTheRun – CompUSA’s closing stores- good deals to be found
Testing BlogJet
I’m testing BlogJet to see if it works better with the XHTML requirements of the theme I’m now using. While I may have only heard of BlogJet in passing previously, James Kendrick over at jkOnTheRun has recommended it in a post or two, so I thought I’d check it out.
Pretty nifty tool so far, I just hope it actually generates clean XHTML compliant output. I’ll give it a try for awhile (the 30 day trial period) and see if it does the job.
Sidebar Issue Solved
I’ve got the sidebar issue figured out! It was improper XHTML validation, meaning that I had some syntax issues in several posts. Still do one some I’m sure – I only fixed the one’s that were on the front page so it would work. I’m sure if a person drilled down into posts from a few days to a week ago the sidebar will drop down below the posts.
What? You’re wondering what caused this? I was too! My culprit was Windows Live Writer adding some “unclean” XHTML definitions when using certain features that made WLW really useful. So I’m back to writing my posts in the browser again for the time being until I figure out if it was my tag-insert plugin or something deeper in WLW.
It’s late and I need to sleep. Later!
End of the line for Windows Live Writer?
It may be for me. My new theme simply does not like WLW created posts – mainly because it does not create strict XHTML. Why can’t Microsoft adhere to a standard? It really frosts my balls when they have some great (and complex) products, but they can’t follow something as simple as XHTML.
Ugh!
And it was a nice WYSIWYG editor as far as I was concerned. Figures!
Get it right MS!
Technorati tags: Windows Live Writer
BLOG CONSTRUCTION ZONE
Watch for falling blog posts!
I’m trying out a different theme (again) and am having some issues with the sidebar. The them is MistyLook by Sadish Bala. Its a great WordPress 2.1 compatible theme that answers a lot of what I’ve been looking for.
But beware, I’ve disabled a number of plugins that I use regularly here to try an d find the issue with the sidebar dropping to the bottom of the posts. I’ll get it eventually – there are some great threads on the theme’s site – so we’ll figure it out!
Any comments on the updated theme? The Water 3 theme by the undersigned I was using previously was very crisp, but was not as clean and though-out as I had hoped when I first saw it. The text was too small, and some components like list bullets didn’t line up properly. I just want a simple, clean theme with lots of white space that doesn’t get cluttered up easily.
Another note, I’m going to trim out a lot of the plugins that I think have been slowing down the site. Including advertising. I’m going to pick one, maybe two subtle ads and the rest go bye-bye. Your feedback is always welcome!
links for 2007-03-02
- As this article at Network Computing indicates, the chance of a widespread mobile-device virus attack is exceptionally slim. This will probably change as mobile devices become the dominant information access device world-wide – something that PCs still h
Winter in Minnesota – Snowday!
Well, finally in March we get one of our substantial snow storms! One storm last week dumped anywhere from 8″ on the low side to a whopping 30″ in one town in the southwest part of the state! We got around 10″ here at home.
Today and tomorrow, we’re supposed to get another potential 12″, so I had planned to work from home today. Not a bad deal – I can usually get more done here than in the office because of not being interrupted all the time.
So yes, we’re finally getting the snow we should have started the winter with back in November. Oh well, I’ll still not get a chance to get the sled out, but its just nice to see it look like winter around here rather than a brown, patchy white mess.
links for 2007-02-27
The other side of Google and video
Always count on an honest “insiders” perspective from Mathew Ingram on media related issues. He is right in that Google’s core competency in this area is advertising. The end-game of all this, of course, is making money, and supplying videos with ads is
@MAC_Arms Pay taxes when you make your money, pay taxes when you spend your money, pay taxes when you successfully invest your money, pay taxes when you save enough taxed money to afford a house, pay taxes to live in your house, pay taxes when you sell the house that you paid taxes on to
Yup, taxes are criminal and we need serious reforms. I've always said that if you want to see a tax revolt, make withholdings illegal and have Americans write a tax check every payday. They'll revolt for sure. You don't miss what you never had.
I think it’s safe to say that @GovEvers should stop blocking audits in Wisconsin and open the books…
“Only AMERICAN citizens should vote.”
Sen. @berniemoreno says voter ID and proof of citizenship are simply common sense.
“We’re talking about a very low threshold — identify who you are and prove you’re a U.S. citizen when you register to vote. I think we’re getting closer to
Wrong. Democrats are solely responsible for hours-long airport lines.
They voted to defund TSA three times and won’t even entertain a conversation about reopening it. Why?
They’re using it as leverage to stop enforcing immigration laws.