Forbes says that more than half a million new claims for unemployment insurance were filed in the week ending October 17. Many will be looking for new jobs or contracts and trying to seek them as cheaply as possible. What is the minimum amount that a person can spend to build an effective online platform to find piece work and jobs? People who’ve worked in the software development field probably know the answers to those questions already. But for a person who’s spent his life on a factory floor, driving a truck or working largely on an office-supplied computer a simple set of suggestions might help. Here are some tips for a person who already has a computer and broadband access to the Internet. They might not be the best, but they are probably a useful starting point for someone standing on the edge of the Great Digital Ocean.
- If you don’t already have an established email account, get a free one from Gmail. You can check your mail from anywhere. It can be set up to automatically sort your incoming mail into folders. But the best things about Gmail isn’t the email program at all. It’s Google Docs and Google Calendar. Google Docs provides you with free online versions of a Microsoft Word compatible word processing program, an Excel compatible spreadsheet and a Powerpoint compatible presentation system. They are considerably less powerful at the margin than the real thing. But since most users only need the basic features, they provide all the functionality you are likely to need to write a resume, do your taxes, write a proposal, etc. When you’re done you can download them as Word, Excel or Powerpoint files. Or PDF. But the greatest benefit of Google Docs lies in the ability to share the documents with others. They don’t have to be Gmail users. This feature allows several people (I’ve worked with over six) to simultaneously edit the same document. So you can be on the phone with another person and work through a proposal with him. The power of Google Calendar stems from the ability to share information with users. Several people can coordinate their schedules by sharing their schedules with others. You will see the events others have shared with you and others will see the events you have shared with them. The really nice thing about it is that it displays the schedules in your time zone. If someone on the US East coast schedules a meeting with me at 17:00 Eastern I see it as 08:00 the next day, AEST.
- Get Skype. What many people don’t realize is that for less then $15 a month you can call any landline in many First World countries and a lot of cell phones in some. Since most of my calls are to the US and a smaller number to phones in Australia, I make all my calls over Skype, including those to my friends. All for a little more then $14 Australian dollars a month. This essentially allows me to forget I have phone bill. I am on what would have been called a “long distance” call about 100 hours a month and spend fourteen bucks. The best part of using the computer to call, I think, is that you eventually use a headset and microphone, which leaves your hands free for coffee or for using the computer. After you get used to a headset, you will hate handsets. The combination of Skype plus Google Docs is dynamite. When employed together you can be virtually present to people, even groups of people on a free conference call scattered over half the planet.
- Get the Firefox browser and load the following add ins: Quicknote, a simple notetaking program that will open anywhere on your browser and stores the informatin on your local drive. No more searching around on the desktop (virtual or otherwise) for a place to write notes. Also get a bookmarking program like Diigo or Zotero (also Firefox add ons) that let you share, store and organize your information. Try either, you won’t regret it and if it doesn’t suit you find another that does.
These tools put an impressive set of capabilities in an unemployed person’s hands. In fact, they exceed the functionality available to many small businesses by a considerable margin. If a man at loose ends has got a computer and broadband access, these tools are entirely free, except for the monthly fee he’ll have to pay Skype to call phones (as opposed to other Skype users with computers). Even those without a computer can buy, build or probably mooch one off of someone for less than $500.
But probably the greatest thing these online tools can give a jobless person is a way to fight back against adverse circumstances. Even if these tools don’t get the unemployed man a job outright, their mere use will keep him in circulation and hooked up to opportunities. Just using them will indirectly provide training in a skill that will be useful in many circumstances. I’m firmly convinced that proficiency in being able to work online will be an essential job skill in the near future. Arthur C. Clarke once believed that:
For all but a vanishing instant near the dawn of history, the word ‘ship’ will mean – ‘spaceship.’
– Arthur C. Clarke
Whether Clarke was right or wrong it’s likely that in the coming decades the words “going to the office” will increasingly mean “going online”.
Great post, Wretchard.
There are many freebies on the web that are far superior to many corporate tools of ten (even 5) years ago. For any one who wants to learn web development, use the following link.
Microsoft freebies
Understanding the web and/or web development is pretty much a requisite for any one looking for work these days. It never ceases to amaze me how few professionals understand the relationship between server and client, or more to the point, where does web application code “live” and where is the data kept. (I could rant for hours about major corporations storing huge amounts of data on offshore computer farms. What happens to that data when underwater cables are cut, for example? Arghhhhh!!!)
If there is any interest in the subject, I will put up a web site with some tutorials and white papers on building web sites and/or ecommerce sites.
Great stuff! I’m constantly impressed how the information technology guys have come up with more and more ways to make life a little easier and open new opportunities.
I’ve started two businesses, and am slowly taking over a third (all small family operations). I always had heard that simply showing up gets you more than half way there. With the tools available today, I think that understates the reality significantly.
This is great for anyone who wants to start a business, or maybe make their life a little easier if they were doing things ‘the old fashioned way’. If nothing else, if anyone out there has been pushing your boss to allow you to work from home most of the week, just send him this post!
Thanks Wretchard. My wife is writing grants to benefit a small Catholic school. These tools will be very helpful.
Programmer, there is interest on the subject, thank you very much.
I gather you just assume the computer has Internet connectivity, but don’t most computers also come with some kind of installed office software, local or hosted, legal or illegal? I thought from the title you were going to recommend some job sites, or support sites, or something.
* Have a resume online.
* If you’re not a good writer, find someone who is to help.
* Don’t just look for places to send your resume, but post the resume on job sites like Monster or Dice … there are hundreds.
* If you do submit your resume places, realize that this is a very INEFFICIENT way to go, because most advertised jobs attract so many responses, 98% are discarded, unread.
* You will probably need a fax or scanner for some job application functions, when you need to sign something, fax and image are legal, email alone is not.
* Be very wary of anyone charging you for job search help. There are a LOT of “recruiters” out there who can help, but they get their fees when you are placed, from the employer.
* Most recruiters, suck.
* But, many jobs today only go through these recruiters.
* Old-fashioned job seeking still works, too, at least in some industries. Network through friends. Be ready with standard job seeking behaviors – look good, smell good, and smile a lot.
etc.
ps – I also thought you might be mentioning that you can apply for unemployment compensation online – in California they have been advertising this on the radio!
ou can apply for unemployment compensation online
States like the Upper Left Washington have had that for years. I just moved to a new job after 9 months of unemployment, and all during that time never met anyone from the unemployment office from start to finish, despite exhausting my “benefits” the week I finally found my new job.
And, no, I wasn’t waiting for that to happen. I’d much rather be grossing $2000 a week doing real work as compared to subsisting on the $469 the state of Utah was sending me. The hard part is cutting through all the noise. I noticed, for example, that I could apply for a job locally for which I thought I was perfect, yet never hear back from anyone. I’d even get to the point of doing phone interviews (and one in-person) and then hear nothing from prospective employers. How hard is it to tell people, “sorry, but no.” I’m an adult, I can take “no” for an answer, but consider it rude to never get an answer. (I look at that silent rejection as a good sign, that I missed out on a job that was going to be painful in some way.) The job I just got was because I’d applied months ago for something else, then suddenly I popped up on their system as a match, and they contacted me.
How do you get Skype to reduce the number of calls it drops suddenly?
Is it Skype or ISP caused? Something else? Whatever, I’m sure there will be tech improvements so that skype rivals landlines in reliability.
What are the best solutions while awaiting tech improvements?
Thanks Wretchard for another helpful insight. I’m a novice with computers but found a web site that offers many such hints to help others use them more effectively. I hope I’m not taking too much space to post some of these hints that others may find useful.
Personally I recommend Goodsync , Roboform, CCleaner, and Internet Free Eraser as extremely helpful downloads. There are free versions but usually you have to buy the “professional” downloads of Goodsync and Roboform for a nominal fee to get what you really need.
I’ve not tried all of the below but have found several to be very useful to me. Most are free. The list was provided by a moderator, Freddy, on the Samsung web site: http://sammynetbook.com/plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?18209
Some perform the same functions as generally available tools but with less overhead on your computer.
————————————————————————-
Firefox – by far the best browser
Foxit Reader – a better alternative to Adobe’s PDF Reader
jZip – extremely fast zip/unzip utility – like WinRAR but free
KM Player – the best media player, of course it beats Windows Media Player. Better than VLC and even lower on resources than Media Player Classic. And this one has the most codec’s built in so you don’t need K-Lite. If you want better Hi-def performance for 720p/1080p then get Core AVC Pro also (Core AVC Pro is not free though)
CCleaner – Clean your registry from old “****”
Auslogics Disk Defrag – Better defrag utility than the Windows built-in
NT Registry Optimizer – compresses Windows registry for better performance
Recommended Firefox add-ons
Firefox gets a special section with a list of very useful add-ons. I will not describe what each one does – but you can go to their page and read more and see if the add-on is something you can have use for:
Compact Menu 2
Undo Closed Tabs Button
Adblock Plus
Tweak Network
Add to Search Bar
Cooliris
Hide Caption (note: you have to login to get this add-on but it’s worth it! )
Adobe Flash Player
Also recommended by others in this thread:
DriverMax – updates drivers to latest version and possibly more usefully, saves and restores drivers for all installed hardware so if you have to reinstall your OS you don’t have to scratch around for driver disks, CDs, and downloads. (courtesy TCMuffin)
Secunia Personal Software Inspector – a security tool which helps you secure your computer against vulnerabilities in programs by pinpointing exactly which patches your installed software needs. (courtesy TCMuffin)
Also PING and AA1Backup which are two free utilities for backing up and restoring your netbook and work with either Windows or Linux. More details may be found in the thread on How to backup and restore your netbook. (courtesy TCMuffin)
Defraggler – by the same people who make ccleaner
(courtesy Billy Balthorpe)
Filehippo Update Checker – this is very good, searches your puter and tells you what software updates are available (freeware) and then links to the updates on the filehippo site. It is very useful. (courtesy Billy Balthorpe)
Sticky Notes – which I got after seeing a recommendation on this forum for sticky notes on your desktop. (courtesy Billy Balthorpe)
Comodo – free firewall that works very well.
(courtesy Billy Balthorpe)
A charitable post, wretchard, and I send a “thank you” from the ranks of the unemployed.
Last week I read that 10% unemployment may be the “new normal” for the next 4-5 years. Many unemployed in their late 50′s may never work again. Gulp. That gives one a very odd feeling.
@9 Salt Lick:
Never is a very long time. More will happen between now and ever that can be imagined by people who say “never”. Expect to look back at this time a few years from now and wonder why everyone was so pessimistic about not having anything to do. There’ll be plenty to do. And it will have to get done.
3/BH. My daughter’s high school uses google docs. In the evening, curled up on her bed with her laptop, if she has trouble on an English essay, for instance, a question that helps her focus will appear in red on her essay — her teacher, monitoring her progress from his computer at home. They also have a very nice utility called “snapgrades.”
I’d also add registering with professional/social networking sites like LinkedIn (there are many others, too), and building profiles on trade and service sites, such as eLance (if your skills fit).
It’s free and it makes networking and ‘getting visible’ easy and fun.
I’ve been using Google docs, in part to get off-site storage. At first I was using it while trying out the Chrome Browser from Google but near terminally crashed my computer (I may have also had Firefox or Explorer open at the time, I forget). So I uninstalled Chrome. Google docs seems to have problems syncing with my home computer through Firefox but I haven’t tried working with documents offline yet so it hasn’t been a problem.
There is also “Open Office Suite” from Sun (it’s free) which can merge documents and graphics for reports and proposals. It has Linux and Windows OS versions and works with Google Docs (though I have not tried it except for text files). I’ve played around with OF some and it does the basics (which is all I can do) fine.
I was talking to a man about a job ten years ago. And he said something to me that most job seekers don’t realize for one reason or another.
“In order to get the job you want. You need to be able to sell yourself.” What he meant was that getting a job was first and foremost a act of salesmanship. If you go at the job/career/vocation (there are differences in them) from the standpoint of a cold calling salesman you stand a whole lot better chance than if you sit and wait.
Finding the work you want to do requires actively working at it 8 to 10 hours per day. Knowing what it is that you want to do is a large step in the right direction. So put a lot of effort initially into just what kind of work will make you happiest. This requires knowing yourself. Ask and answer the hard questions. Prioritize your list and then find those companies that use that kind of work.
Then research them. Find out who makes the decisions. Find out where and when that person is available. Make an appointment. BE READY TO MAKE THE SALE! Don’t be nervous or shy, but aggressive is bad as well. Quiet confidence is good. Even more important. Don’t talk money. Talk about what you can do for her company. Ask question pertinent to the business. Not about money/benefits. If he likes you he will initiate the money discussion. But you have to get her to like you. Resumes get cursory looks, don’t rely on them to get you an interview. But have one ready and target the resume to the needs of the business you are targeting.
Be flexible in order to get your foot in the door. Within reason and your budget requirements. It is much, much easier to move around within a company than it is to start in the job you want. Also, don’t take criticism personally. FOLLOW UP! Make those continuing contact calls but don’t be a pest. Tell them when you will call back and make sure you do it.
I don’t care what people say in today’s climate. Dress and act like you weren’t raised by wolves in the forest. BE CONSERVATIVE. It doesn’t hurt and can be a help.
JFSanders031 @ 14: I agree with what you say, with a big but – at *some* point you have to talk money, and that can still blow the deal. This is a *serious* problem in IT and most STEM jobs these days. It is a waste of everyone’s time if we do everything you suggest – and then the salary is half what you made last time. And such opportunities abound in IT these days. I’m talking about me, here. I’m sitting home right now, rather than take any of several very low pay offers. It’s a hard game to play – but also one more and more are going to get caught up in, in this New Economy. But, I have an entire sales campaign on right now, through a recruiter (which is norally like pushing on a string, when it comes to compensation issues, but this recruiter is a bit of a friend), to land what sounds like it might be a very good job at a local (and Name) employer, who nonetheless is offering what I see as very low compensation. Odds are long, but it passes the time.
Any of y’all ever tune in to any Internet sites for radio stations? I have not done it lately but there is a lot out there. Just fooling around a few years ago I tuned into a radio station in Australia and heard a discussion of milk price supports. Fascinating! For about 15 seconds, I will admit, but fascinating.
There are opportunities out there, ones that sound so obvious after they come out. For example, back in 1977 I decided that I did not want a full-fledged component stereo system but just a little player where I could use pre-recorded cassette tapes, one better than the portable GE tape recorder I had. So I looked around and found … nothing.
Believe it or not, no such thing existed. You could order a nice stereo tape deck for about $350 that had a built in amplifier so you could hook up speakers, but a little tape player with a couple of speakers did not exist. They had them for installation in cars but not use in for homes. I thought that all rather odd – and a couple of years later Sony brought out the Walkman and everyone would have thought the previous lack of such a product to be odd too, if they had thought about it at all.
And from that idea of portable music we got not only the Walkman and a thousand copies but also boom boxes, portable CD players, MP players, and Ipods.
What else is out there like the Walkman?
And as for the availability of computers, if you don’t want the latest and greatest they are essentially free. Look parked next to the trash cans. In fact recovering such cast-offs and getting Internet-Illiterate people on line is probably a good business opportunity right there.
Great post!
But when I first read the title, I was expecting a rant about the folks over at The Daily Kos!
Another bit of advice for those in “stable” employment and now approaching or past mid-career. Assume you may be out on your own at 50 or 55, and plan ahead. Its going to happen to a lot of good people.
Think about the experience, training, skills, portfolio, certifications, and contacts, etc. that you would want to have. If you are fortunate enough to work for a Fortune 1000 type outfit, it may be possible to acquire quite a bit of this in a way that benefits them now and you later on, and all or mostly on their dime.
For example, if you are a project manager, get PMP certified. If you are a software developer, get and stay current in the “in demand” areas. Write up a My Small Business business plan, with revenue, costs, client base, etc. Think about where you live, and where you want to live (you might wrangle a company paid transfer from California to Dallas, for instance, and begin to build contacts there now, if that’s you goal.) Your mileage may vary, but everyone would benefit from having a written plan, even if it says “stay at ATT until retirement at 66″.
Every person with professional level income should set (or at least consider) an objective to become financially independent, i.e. you don’t “have” to work to live. Many of the posters here have been very eloquent about personal liberty and the downside of dependency – effective financial independence (even partial independence) is very powerfully aligned with that.
Its won’t be possible for all, and not everyone will succeed, but its a useful perspective to have. Ask yourself, “what would it take to achieve that?” and make a conscious decision.
OG/18–right you are, good advice for anyone who is still early in their career.
Years ago I read a personal finance book with the standard advice in it, much of which was new to me then and I still remember one thing that stood out amongst it all: There are three ways to get money–your work, someone else’s work, the work of your money. I set out to achieve the latter.
The key thing for me was to live well within my means . . . significantly. Nice, decent home, car, educations for the kids, etc but never lavish. No Mercedes, ‘ritzy’ neighborhoods, avoid borrowing like the plague, accelerated payment on mortgages.
Next, I set about to educate myself about the stock market, conservative attitudes only, no gurus. Here, I’ll admit, the Reagan years helped a lot.
I semi-retired at age 48, completely at 60, and living the same middle-middle way we always have, there is no difference in our standard of living.
Remember: your work, someone else’s work, or the work of your money.
PS: One of my sons had a summer job where he worked around ‘jobbers’, what we now probably call programmer contractors. Many of them lived a sort of gypsy life and had a saying that impressed him and me both: “When you’re working live like you’re unemployed so that when you’re unemployed you can live like you’re working.”
Scorn those who revel in Rolexes, elaborate homes, expensive cars–they always take the fall sooner or later.
Scorn those who revel in Rolexes, elaborate homes, expensive cars–they always take the fall sooner or later.
Well, … those of our rich friends who can revel in Rolexes out of their pocket change, like Goldman bond traders, y’know, … $700k average bonuses this year … don’t even get me started.
Yeah, maybe not always (should I have said ‘Rolices’?).
Quicknote? QUICKNOTE?! Sigh. Richard, read the ads on your own page and give it up for EVERNOTE!
Lives on your desktop and also lives online at the same time with synchronization. This means you can reach your notes from any node without having to be at your computer.
Since Google abandoned Google Notebook this is the replacement on steroids. Free if you don’t clip over 40 megs of notes a month.
Since it is a for-profit rather than a mozdev you get a lot more functiønality. (Images, mpgs, movies, etc.)
Check it out. I use it all the time. I even clip Belmont Club postings to it so later I can say, “I told you so, but did you listen? Noooooo!”
# 19, Gordon,
Very good advice. My wife and I have lived comfortably within our means for almost 30 years now. After she got laid off many years ago, we did just as you suggested. I worked for CONOCO for 15 years, until I was nearing 50. I was given a choice of being laid off immediately, or being put on leave without pay for 6 Mo or so. I took the leave. My wife was making good money so we were not hurting. In ’94 they brought me back for one day as full time with pay, and cut me a check for severance, and unused vacation. I had already closed out my Thrift plan which was part taxed and part untaxed and opened an IRA for the untaxed portion. I also bailed out of their retirement plan and rolled the proceeds to my IRA. At that time we had bought a nice 16+ AC tract of land in the country using a Veterans loan, and putting up a good bit from closing out my thrift plan. We decided that my job would be house building, and she would work.
In this environment, as when I was ERd there were no jobs. The highest paid Professionals are the first to go. They hire new Engineers and let them make their mistakes until they are competent and too highly paid.
My wife was laid off from Schlumberger over a year ago, and this last month, she quit looking. And the Idiots paid for her to get her Masters!
She did get a good severance, and with some investments over the years we are secure.
Final note: We owned a house in Houston, 30 Yr note, 8.5%, that we always paid extra principle on every month. It was paid off long before we moved out here the end of ’99.
Our country place was paid for several years ago. Now all we worry about are the big things, Energy (1000 Gal Propane now and then, Electrical, taxes and Insurance. I am on SS now, and that will buy a lot of cat food, err, hamburgers.
Point is, until you are ready to live off of what you have, no 42″ wide screens, and no Ferrari’s
Google Voice also is a cooool tool to receive and to manage calls. Here you can take a look of how to “Make Unlimited Free Calls on Your Cellphone with Google Voice”. Link
17. jaymaster:
“Great post!
But when I first read the title, I was expecting a rant about the folks over at The Daily Kos!”
LOL! I’m glad I wasn’t the only one!
There are some amazing freebies online, no doubt about it. Search engines are a gem unto themselves.
Well, the 42″ wide screens aren’t all that costly now compared to the Ferraris! So I still stock up on the canned tomatoes when they’re on special for a dime less, but more for the exercise than the actual savings.
It’s hard to maintain objectivity about costs. I saw the Fry’s ad last week, 160gb drives for $29. Let’s see now, when I graduated college a single 160 megabyte drive was $29,000 or so in dollars now depreciated by a factor of 10, so disks are now 10,000,000x cheaper, not to mention just the power to run the old 14″ drives probably cost more than $29/month, and the new ones are much faster and more reliable.
Evernote… no linux support… bummer. QuickNote is fine.
As file acessibility goes, I have my own online repository using FileGears (http://filegears.amdgear.com/ ). No need for software download, it is a web based application–works with any OS and modern browsers. It’s not free, but you can become an affiliated partner and recoup your initial cost quickly. Excellent for teamwork (revisions tracking and granulated permissions).
It is a standalone app at the moment (you install it on your server or server space), but they would have a hosted version at some point.
Gerard,
Evernote looks pretty good. Much better than Quicknote whose strong suite is that it is, well quick and offline. The unstated benefit of using something like Firefox is that you can get some of the functionality off a real Office Suite for nothing more than the cost of a download. That means that some of your online dreams are that little bit closer.
Assume for the moment that you are the modern hobo, living out of your car, with nothing but a cheap $500 netbook and a wireless broadband account to your name. You can’t even afford to hang out at a Starbuck’s. You fall asleep nights dreaming of a macaroni and cheese dinner. At the bookstore you press your face against the glass case containing Microsoft Office Professional 2007 which sits tauntingly but inches away. There … if you could reach out and buy it, lies the key to the new Great American novel that you were going to write. And then you turn away and go into the parking lot and boot up your cheap netbook and Notepad stares back at you. You try to write on that. If only …
But never fear. If you have followed some of the advice above, you can do research using Diigo, Zotero, Evernote or even Quicknote. Yes! Even create a Powerpoint presentation with the knockoffs which look good enough if you no one is looking too closely. And you’ll flip the slides before they notice. Your account runs low. But never mind, Quicknote works even when the broadband has run out and you’re waiting for your plan to come back to life when the new allotment of gigabytes comes in. The Great American novel can keep getting written … you discover that Wordpad works somewhat better than Notepad.
And here’s the thing about the Internet. It connects you with the darndest people. One day that Netbook of yours is going to beep cheaply and notify you of an incoming message which will lead to a new job, career or life. Maybe a contract overseas or if nothing else, a interesting discount on macaroni and cheese dinners. Or something you never even dreamed of. You never know. Beep. Beep. Beep. It might even say this:
Your mileage may vary.
Some of us us an Apple computer. The advantage is that Adobe is built in, just Print and Save As PDF. Safari works but I do hear nice things about FireFox. The disadvantage about Apple is Al Gore on the Board of Directors. Are there any compatibility issues that relate to these tools for a Mac user or advice that anyone has? Still looking for a real job after a year plus and things are not looking good at this point.
[i]“Your mileage may vary.”[/i]
Mine certainly has! I was laid off from a corporate job almost 4 years ago, and got along for a bit on temping, and a couple of small-businesses hiring me as an independent contractor for office admin and marketing jobs. Worked up to being an associate and editor at a small publishing firm (also doing their website) as well as marketing my own books on the side – and working on my next.
Still waiting on that offer of an option for a movie or a miniseries on my books.’
You never know – it may happen tomorrow…
We are all going to get rich.
Japanese firms to develop small nuclear reactors.
If we just acted basically sane the future would be incredibly bright. We have the hydrocarbons, oil, shale and tar, to power our transportation network. The coal for industry and power and the technology for nuclear generation that would lift our economy up to a quantum level where we would have nothing to fear from thugs and despots and bigots like Chavez, Ahmadinejehad and the Saudis. This would give us the wealth and security to meet all of our social and environmental goals. We are throwing away a winning hand to do what? To impress a bunch of losers?
“I saw the Fry’s ad last week, 160gb drives for $29.”
I just got a TB for $115. When I was in college we were still using slide rules. Now if we could just get bandwidth. Been spending the last 24 hours moving a measly 4.7 GB file to the server I need it on. I work for a large information company that is a worldwide household name – actually several household names but “you can’t get there from here” defines the topography of the internal networks and that (s) on network is the key. Balkanized physical infrastructure costs billions. You want to send something from a Mid-Atlantic state to the Mountain West it goes through London – go figure.
I am in my late 50′s now and have learned a couple of things.
Information wants to free. You can only charge for it if it is timely or well organized.
Most managers know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. I blame this on Business Schools most of which should be shut down.
No meeting with more than four people in it ever accomplished anything worthwhile.
If you are afraid of losing your job you probably will.
And last but not least my father’s advice has proved true. Don’t be afraid to take a chance because you can always dig ditches if it turns to crap.
No meeting with more than four people in it ever accomplished anything worthwhile. That reminds me of Dogbert’s theory of meetings–you start out with a collective IQ of 100 and subtract ten for every person present. The results will be predictable considering the IQ of the collective.
I just got a TB for $115.
At one point (not all that long ago) I was responsible for a computing center that supported about 150 people in an engineering and manufacturing facility. It was VAX/VMS, for those old enough to remember. I bought 4 new disk drives, 1 GB each, for the low, low price of $10,000 each. It was a major upgrade. After we moved all 150 people onto the drives, they were about 1/3 full, and we felt like we were living large.
Wretchard @ 28
I intend to try the Firefox “office-lite” but am confused why no one has mentioned Open Office which has nearly all of the Microsoft Office capability and is a free download.
Sgt. Mom @ 30
If ever Hollywood returns to making movies to entertain adults rather than teenagers, your Adelsverein Trilogy should be one of the first optioned. However, in today’s climate no producer wants a story about hard-working people who work together to form a community.
I intend to try the Firefox “office-lite” but am confused why no one has mentioned Open Office which has nearly all of the Microsoft Office capability and is a free download.
I’ve never tried Open Office since I have always had some form of Office Professional. There are so many great products out there we discard the awesome in favor of the incredible. We have had an embarssment of riches. A civilization which can throw away a Wordperfect, Quatro Pro and products too numerous to mention into the dustbin of history is living through a tremendous period of intellectual expansion.
The remarkable thing about this period is how, as the capabilities of the productive sector have been increasing the mentality of its politicians has inversely declined. The gap between the ideologues and the working stiffs has never been greater. How is it that we can throw hundreds of thousands of productive workers out of jobs each month and provide funding to hire more staff people for ACORN? We are civilization of geniuses led by morons. The level of public policy discourse — that sour mash of Global Warming, borrowing our way out of debt, the campaign to force men to sit down down to pee in toilets, searching through parked cars for pocket knives, banning talk radio personalities from the UK because of political incorrectness, demonizing nuclear power, demonizing nuclear power in space, multiplying safety regulations to ensure that no new thing goes unpunished, creating no-go areas in science, no quarantine categories of disease, admiration at the highest levels for murderous thugs like Hugo Chavez, Mao Tse Tung, citing the need for “death panels” as the highest embodiment of enlightenment — all at a time when technology and knowledge are exploding is incomprehensible. The level of public discourse is so low it might have come from a 19th century academy for mentally challenged Marxists. And it probably does.
The only way I can account for the power of Marxism in public policy is that Western civilization has in its mistaken charity, provided jobs for people who are better employed filing papers in physical filing cabinets. Maybe we should employ them this way after all. The papers can be blank and their job can be to move the files in one cabinet back to the other, ad infinitum, like moving a pile of cannon balls from one end of the yard to the other. It would be the best contribution they could make to civilization. Pay them well, they will have earned it for staying out of our way.
When the history of this period is written, they are going to ask we were thinking, what we might have been smoking to account for this disconnection. The gap between what this civilization is capable of and what it is allowed to do or even think has never been greater.
Lord Monckton in his Minnesota speech last week said what I’ve been warning for about a decade; and still — for what one may be forgiven for concluding must be diplomatic reasons — he felt obliged to add the parenthetical hedge that I will emphasize in bold
For all our wit and superiority — and Lord knows I’ve been as guilty of this as anyone — we cannot abide other individuals with their flaws both petty and large as much as we need so that we can prevent the despots from enslaving us all.
They who would rise to rule us may appear to be stupid, but they know how to divide us time and again.
So which caste is really the stupid one?
——————————
If you have not read it before, I recommend the following series by my old friend Fran Porretto: http://www.eternityroad.info/index.php/weblog/single/the_death_cults/
programmer @ 1 said:
Please. I am always interested in what others have to say and idsplay to learn from it.
I recommend Skype. Remember, it calls computer to computer for free. If you have broadband it is as good or better than most international phone lines. Also, the cost to call from your computer to a land line in another country is cheap, cheap. Skype will also provide you a phone number for a small amount.
tech for less is a great web site that offers open box, return and factory refurbished tech components for low prices. I have purchased from them and they are very good. Laptops are sometimes one gen back but good enough and you can get a good one for less than $500. Get factory refurbs as you know they have been repaired – IOW, the bugs are worked out.
wretchard wrote:
Ain’t that the truth. Occam’s Razor tells me that we truly are our own worst enemies these days. The level of stupidity leaves me habitually shaking my head. Someone mentioned above that those in their late 50′s might never work again? Why waste the talents of your most knowledgeable and productive? I think some days that the society is undergoing some collective psychosis these days. Millennial disease?
Today, BHO declared a ‘National Emergency’ around the swine flu debacle. My better half works in child care and the kids who are getting sick and visit their doctors or emergency rooms are told they have this swine flu bug if they have flu symptoms BUT without being tested to see if they truly have it. (The test does exist and is definitive.) This is significant and alarming. If the public health authorities are misreporting then that seems criminal.
Also, there was a piece on the “news” on the idiot box that showed hordes of people queued up to get the swine flu vaccine but it was being doled out to the ones most at risk. Now, it seems to me, if there is a contagious disease out there the last place I want to be is around lots and lots of people some of whom may be ill or getting ill.
Was at dinner tonight at a friends house and the man of the house had gotten the seasonal, regular flu shot a couple of weeks before and he reported that he felt badly for days. Now what is wrong with that picture? Of the four of us around the dinner table, none was planning on getting the swine flu shot because of the risks the vaccine seems to carry.
I’m reading headlines in several places trumpeting that “fact” the people in industries suffering from government take-over and subsequent cuts in pay are going elsewhere. There is alarm at this presumed brain-drain of the most talented.
Given the high rate of unemployment, my question is, “where are they going?” How many “masters of the universe” or “CEO of a motor company” jobs are out there, really, to make it so easy to leave your current job in a fit of pique of Obama wants to cut your bonus in half?
Does anyone actually have the name of a person they know who did this?
Returning to tech stuff, this post is very useful!
Now, I would say never put any sensitive on google’s servers. They have some of the most aggressive cookies, bots, and terms of service of the major players.
When you write a document and spell check its key words are gathered and added to google’s massive data base for Advertising. The Doubleclick Dart cookie is very long lasting and good at data mining.
Even if you delete a document from google’s servers they remain for a time. Then there is the issue of true ownership of information. Sure, you may own your own service mark or have a copyright but that’s about it. You material can seep into the web and stay for years. Then somebody can copy and make minor changes and claim it is his.
Here is a look:
[google site on their cookies]
..Google records information such as account activity (e.g., storage usage, number of log-ins, actions taken), data displayed or clicked on (e.g., UI elements, links), and other log information (e.g., browser type, IP address, date and time of access, cookie ID, referrer URL).
Content. Google Docs stores, processes and maintains your documents and previous versions of those documents in order to provide the service to you.
Uses
Files you create with Google Docs may, if you choose, be read, copied, used and redistributed by people you know or, again if you choose, by people you do not know. Use care when including sensitive personal information in documents you share or in chat sessions, such as social security numbers, financial account information, home addresses or phone numbers. Information you disclose using the chat function of Google Docs may be read, copied, used and redistributed by people participating in the chat. Use care when including sensitive personal information in documents you share or in chat sessions, such as social security numbers, financial account information, home addresses or phone numbers.
Google adheres to the U.S. Safe Harbor privacy principles (For themselves).
http://tinyurl.com/278o62
Why are [Server] logs kept…?
Google is a reflection of the content and information that is available on the Internet. Search engines do not have the ability to remove content directly from the Internet, so removing content from Google or another search engine would still leave the original content that exists on the Web. The best thing for users who want content removed from the Internet to do is contact the webmaster of the page…
…Gmail uses software to scan emails for viruses and to filter out spam. Google uses this same kind of software to scan for keywords in users’ emails which we can then use to match ads. When a user opens an email message, computers scan the text and then instantaneously display relevant information that is matched to the text of the message.
DoubleClick’s DART cookie is used by its ad-serving and search products, on the Google content network and certain Google sites…
If you select a DART opt-out cookie, ads delivered to your browser on behalf of clients using DoubleClick’s ad-serving technology will be targeted based only on the non-personally identifiable information that is automatically transmitted in the Internet environment when an ad request is received by our ad servers, and your DART cookie will not be uniquely identified. The non-personally identifiable information that is automatically transmitted includes your browser type, Internet service provider, information about the general content of the site or page displayed on your browser and other non-personally identifiable information provided by the site.
http://tinyurl.com/2dyekr
What really happens when you “opt-out” of the doubleclick Dart cookie? Well, not much (you actual IP location will not be disclosed. But, here it is:
DoubleClick Dart Cookie
Before Opting out:
Cookie Value Unique, e.g., id= 8000002cd6f0880
Targeting Criteria: Cookie-derived information:
Ad frequency limitation
Ad sequencing
User list
Ad Tag information:
Site name
Web page
Key values
Header fields information:
Operating System type
Windows version
User’s local time
Location information from IP address
Will You Still See Ads? Yes
After op-out No difference except Change in Ad frequency limitation, Ad Sequecing, User list (that is it).
http://tinyurl.com/yhhq8g3
Also, I would look carefully at the terms of service TOS. You will see reversing clauses at the tail end – and the TOS can change at any time.
Google spends time in front of Congress
http://tinyurl.com/cfnryk
and:
http://tinyurl.com/yl3zexv
So, check it out before putting something sensitive on Google.
Nahncee #39:
I read an article in the WSJ about people who are being forced out of the financial/investment industry and are turning to other jobs. An example given was teaching.
I was surprised to see in the article that the financial industry was so exciting and lucrative that people who were not even taking business admin or accounting but instead getting technical degrees decided to go into the field. And the Lord knows how many lawyers must have gotten into it.
And I think this explains a lot. Stupid govt policies like the CRA, activists like Obama and Acorn, and political top cover from the likes of Bwany Fwank drove loans to those who could not pay. And faced with that problem, the entry of thousands of innovation-seeking workers drove the creation of new and complex ways to invest money.
Add to the engineering, scientific or medical workforce and you get more capability and innovation. Add to the financial industry workforce and you get more innovative scams. And they are leaving now, Thank God. Let’s just hope they don’t screw up something else.
OT – to Olde Fogey: yeah, I know that a book cycle like the Trilogy which treats becoming American and building a community as something ennobling probably doesn’t appeal to mainstream Hollywierd right at this moment … but at some point, I am sure they will realize they would like to make money again, and appeal to a red-state and traditional American audience again, and when that happens, my books will so be there. (True love, frontier adventure, cruel war, bitter feuds, cowboys and Texas rangers and Indians … and lots of cows – what’s there not to like?)
Reverting to the topic again – I wonder if a lot of people who have been pushed out of corporate employment aren’t working around to work as independent contractors, or to start up a small specialty business. In which case, the suggested tools are as truly as useful as the other commenters suggest.
RWE: “Any of y’all ever tune in to any Internet sites for radio stations?”
Squeezebox produces a unit that takes your wireless signal, translates the digital to analog, and hooks up to your stereo amp. Now you have access to all of radio stations, local and international. All of them.
Even better, you subscribe to Rhapsody for $13/month and get access to all record label catalogs(but no Stones, Beatles, Led Zep). How many versions of Beethoven symphonies do you need? I don’t know, but Rhapsody has more than I’m going to ever get through.
The remote control of the Squeezebox is the ticket into Rhapsody musical nirvana. Or you can have access to any radio station or specific radio program for free, if you want to let reality intrude on the music experience.
Great Post #36 Wretchard, I have been reading the BC for several years, this this is your best post yet. It seems that America is being taken over by idiots, may they get everything they deserve.
After being in manufacturing for 45years, I was laid off this past June and made my decision to go Galt. Why prop up the feel good processes and paperwork management has created. Then struggle ever day just to meet schedule. No, I am done. It seems to me that the system will have to crash completely before it can be fixed. My short term goal is to find a political candidate that I can support and join the campaign
Up until about 6 months ago I had some interesting things to say about paid search. some useful tools and such. but the game is changing rapidly. I’m struggling to keep up. I really need to stay focused on my biz for a time. Please pray that I do so.
Thanks everyone for the info.
Tools I like:
Express Notes Card File Software for Windows
http://www.nch.com.au/notes/index.html
IrfanView
http://www.irfanview.com/
CutePDF
http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp