www.NewVentures.ca

My daughter sent me a link today – with the comment “This explains sooooo much….” and after I checked out the link – I liked it so much I had to post it as a page within my own blog. Because it is sooooooooo true!

So you can read it as a page within my blog ( and yes I asked for and received permission to do so from the author ) you can read it here – or you can also find it here – www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/11/11/the_nerd_handbook.html on the original website.

It will give you more insite within those few short paragraphs than anything else that I have read on the subject. If you want to know just what is going on with your nerdy/geeky/techie kid/brother/spouse/friend/? then read this article – it explains a lot!

He holds nothing back in his writing and is extremely insightful and can be irreverent – his whole blog is worth reading and checking out www.randsinrepose.com. Where you will find postings on Tech Life, Management and Vegas.

Even now being happily being retired, I can certainly relate to the first two categories and aspire to the third! I would say that his blog is as good as a book – which by coincidence – he has published! Check out managinghumans.com to find out more.

From what I have discerned from his website and Amazon this book isn’t so much about “Managing People” as it is in getting an insight about people from which you can then choose best your managing style. With emphasis of course, on “techie types!” It is available from Amazon here… Managing Humans

Above all else enjoy the article – it is well worth the read!

I was working on a new website that one of my daughters had wanted me to set up and one of the things she really wanted was to showcase all the cakes that she has made.

I did my homework and found several really good java scripts that did exactly what I wanted. They were easy to set up and modify and gave me a great looking slideshow embedded on  her home page. If you want to do something like this, then I recommend that you check out avascriptkit.com’s website.

She took one look at it and told me, no… she wanted a photo album that she could build upon… This was a double challenge now, because while it may be “simple” to create a photo album in HTML, and/or Java, allowing her to update it on her own would be a MAJOR Challenge.

So once again I was looking for something new, a dynamic but simple photo album creating tool, that she could use and update without me getting involved or having to recode it each time….AND hopefully find it for free!

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I introduced a buddy of mine to the concept of torrents. He was going to borrow my cassette/tape deck to transfer some of his old cassettes to CD/MP3 because he couldn’t find them in any stores. I recommended that he use uTorrent and check MiniNova (one of the “safer” ) torrent listing sites to see if he could find what he was hoping to transfer there first.

I sent him an email with links to all the appropriate software and told him to holler if he needed any help – suffice to say – it didn’t take long…

He was concerned about making a lot of stuff on his computer available to everyone, that he just didn’t want to make available. The answer to this problem was pretty straightforward. If you want to do the same then follow these steps. (Continue reading…)

I had the opportunity to revisit a piece of software that I first evaluated about 8 years ago.

Back then I was looking for a database engine for my Palm IIIc, ( which, of course, has been upgraded several times since then ). I had narrowed the choices down to two commercial packages, JFile and HandDBase. Both of which, I’m pleased to report, are still available and still going strong!

Back then my choice was JFile. The main reason it was my choice was the large variety of free databases available for it. Why build something ( like a database for HTML tags, or World Aiports with codes and phone numbers ) when someone else has already done it for me!

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As anyone who has seen that great move Cast Away with Tom Hanks ( and if you haven’t seen it, you really should! ) After struggling with his sticks ( trying to create a fire ) for what was probably weeks, he finally succeeds and he is so excited and energized that he is almost consumed by the energetic happiness of the event. Having no one (save for his friend the volley ball – aptly named Wilson ) to share it with, he exclaims his success to the world with those memorable lines – “I have created Fire!”

Well, that is basically why I enjoyed being an SA ( Systems Administrator) for large Unix systems. When you spend hours and hours tracking and tracing down an unknown problem, never before seen (and will never be seen again once you fix it. ) Creating the solution is so energizing and SO satisfying that you can’t help but scream it to the world and let out all the energy that it creates!

After retiring, I thought those experiences would be far and few between. So my joy was triply compounded yesterday, when after having battled ( on and off ) a network printing issue with Ubuntu Linux and Windows XP for well over five months, the solution was found! And fixed! Never to be an issue again. What a rush!

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