Jul 31, 2006 | blog
Along with this heat wave in the upper midwest, it seems my home wireless router may be on the fritz. It keeps cycling through reboots (or so it seems).
We’ve had about a week and a half of record, or near-record high temps, making it very hard on everyone. Not too easy to keep cool, and I wonder if the heat has anything to do with my router issue.
I’ve connected my main home computer directly into the cable modem and will start trying to diagnose if there is an issue with my router. About 4 days ago I had upgraded the firmware on the device with a new version from D-Link. Not sure if that has anything to do with it, but I may try going back to the old firmware (if I can keep a connection long enough).
Ugh, hardware.
Hmm, maybe its time for an upgrade! 🙂
Jun 30, 2006 | blog
I was convinced of that today during a meeting at work. I’ve been planting the blogging seeds at work for several months, with some success at the IT management level, but was reminded quite aggressively by a coworker that some people have a real hard time with something new.
To some people, change brings disruption, uncertainty, fear, and anger. Obviously they don’t understand what a blog is for or what it can be utilized for. The reaction I experienced today has made me certain that there are some people that you simply can’t reach. Their ability to grasp new concepts and really understand the significance of the difference from existing ideas is a wall blocking their ability to learn new skills.
The amazing thing to me is that intelligent people actually fear things. Rather than take a minute or two and actually listen to a quick explanation or demonstration, they simply make knee-jerk assumption and move on, not knowing what they missed.
Oh well, more opportunity for me!
UPDATE: If anyone is interested in a tactic to address some of the things I’ve talked about here – check out Ann Michael’s post The Change Resistors: Snipers on her Manage To Change blog. There are some great tips on dealing with individuals who enjoy shooting down ideas simply because of lack of understanding.
Jun 30, 2006 | blog
This week was the week from hell. It just seemed like everyone was overworked, overtired, overstressed, and trying not to let it get to them too much. Maybe its the run-up to one of the biggest holiday weekends of the year, but work just seemed not to let up all week.
Ugh, glad to be out of the office and away from everyone for awhile – I think everyone needs it.
Jun 26, 2006 | blog
Just cleared out 60+ spam comments. What garbage – “Good job guys!”, or “Great site…”. Please.
Thank-you to Matt and crew at Automattic for Akismet!
Jun 26, 2006 | blog
Now, I’ve subscribed to Scoble’s blog for almost 2 years or so and I really enjoy his writing style and much of what he has to say. Though in the past few days he’s written a few posts I need to comment on.
Maybe it’s because I took the weekend off to spend with the family and reading about three days posts just gets me more motivated to address some things. Keep in mind, I’m not upset with Robert, and I’m certainly not about to stop reading his blog! So I’ll start with the newest and work my way back – it won’t take long, it’s only a few posts:
- Inside new Sharepoint’s RSS, blogs, and wikis – Thanks for the information! I’ve been following the SharePoint product for the past 2-3 years and am very excited for new details on what’s going on. My hope is to have SharePoint brought inside my employer in the next year or so – its just too powerful a platform not to implement. The nice part is that many business and IT leaders are starting to find the usefulness of the product. The only reason it didn’t make it in the door in 2004 was because of restore options for the database – just not flexible enough. One simple question, and when Microsoft and their partners said “well, not in this version” and couldn’t put a timeline on the request – talks dissolved on the project. We’ll see where they’re at now.
- Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally – Hmmm, I’ve had similar thoughts and wonder a number of things. Is WinFS as the “Windows Future Storage” really gone? Does it matter? As our Web 2.0-centric world spins faster and faster – with better broadband and wireless connections, does it matter for a local relational file system? If all our data is stored online, and most of our apps are web-based, what is the usefulness of a WinFS type subsystem – heck what’s the use of a fat client? Did Bill Gates just let all his pet projects whither as he left for “summer vacation” as Robert puts it? Does Bill care? Was WinFS a pet project? Humph!
- Dear Al Gore: here’s some inconvenient truths – Now I have to admit up front that I am not fond of the former V.P. and that I have not read his book or watched his movie. It’s my opinion that his current media attention is simply targeted at his 2008 run for President – ’nuff said on that. What I will say on this one is that I agree with Robert that our society has several self-induced issues facing it in the next many years, the environment is hardly one of them. Yes, we all could work better at conserving energy in the instances that Robert mentions – and more. The real challenges that we face are the re-writing of history to meet currently desired interpretations, lack of integrity & objectivity in the drive-by media, rejection of traditional cultural norms, and unwillingness to find the middle ground in the political arena.
One thing I’ve noticed about Robert’s blog in recent months is that he really has taken it back as a personal blog instead of the Microsoft PR outlet that it had a tendency to sound like. Now I know I’m on the opposite political fence from Robert, but I do appreciate his open discussion.
On a side note Robert, I do hope the move goes well, with as little issue as possible!
