Back Up Your Gmail

Based on the announcement of gmail data being lost for a small number of users it makes sense to Back Up Your Gmail:

1) Read Google’s Help document on POP access to your Gmail account.

2) Configure an account on your mail client for your gmail account. - IMPORTANT- Build a separate account. If you’re using Outlook, make sure this is a standalone PST file. If you’re using mail.app or Thunderbird, make sure this is a standalone account.

Another description: How to use Outlook to backup your Gmail account

More Evidence of the Bad Patent System

Because The Patent System Sucks, The Only Thing To Do Is File For More Bad Patents

Not to speak for Dodge, but I don't believe he's defending these patents, but just pointing out that if you're in Microsoft's shoes, it's the most reasonable thing to do, given the ridiculous mess that our patent system has become. The whole idea that you should need to file for patents on all sorts of stuff just to avoid later being accused of infringing on an obvious idea should be evidence enough that our patent system is in drastic need of a remake.

Yes it is.

Related: Patent lunacy defense - Patent Review Innovation - Are Software Patents Evil?

Cat Wheel

Video Link

Curious Cat Management Improvement blog address

This is a reminder that the new address for Curious Cat Management Improvement blog is:

management.curiouscatblog.net

Also try our Curious Cat Management Improvement Career Connections 100% free to use and post jobs.

Wordpress Hosts Please

I am looking for suggestions for a decent wordpress host. My current host, TextDrive has been down for 4 hours (that I know of) so far today. This is the 3rd time in less than 2 months they have had such problems (well I think they are problems anyway). the first two times after I contacted them (if I don't notice and contact them I never hear anything) I am told it is rare, we are making changes, there are special causes for this time... We care...

I want a host that publishes uptime figures on the server I will be hosted on (how anyone could claim to manage a web hosting business without such stats is beyond me but...). And I would like that the figure to be above 99.75%. And by 99.75% I mean that is when it is actually available (not that well it is available 99.9% of the time except when we have problems, we don't count x, y and z unavailable time as unavailable, we count is as down only if our Sys Admin has received notice and has accepted the ticket until then we don't start the time...).

I would also prefer a host that responds to problems. I can understand not responding to down web sites within minutes for cheap hosting options. But repeatedly having servers fail for hours in the same day and not even responding to tickets for hours when that is happening is not what I am looking for.

99.75% = 8738.1 hours out of 8760 hours in a 365 day year. That is down 22 hours. The rest of the time anyone visiting the site will see the proper web page.

The End of Pax Americana

The End of Pax Americana by Robert J. Samuelson:

In World War II, an estimated 60 million people died. Only four subsequent conflicts have had more than a million deaths (the Congo civil war, 3 million; Vietnam, 1.9 million; Korea, 1.3 million; China's civil war, 1.2 million), reports the Center for International Development and Conflict Management at the University of Maryland. Under the U.S. military umbrella, democracy flourished in Western Europe and Japan. It later spread to South Korea, Eastern Europe and elsewhere. In 1977, there were 89 autocratic regimes in the world and only 35 democracies, the center estimates. In 2005, there were 88 democracies and 29 autocracies.

Prosperity has been unprecedented. Historian Angus Maddison tells us that from 1950 to 1998 the world economy expanded by a factor of six. Global trade increased 20 times. These growth rates were well beyond historic experience. Living standards exploded. Since 1950, average incomes have multiplied about 16 times in South Korea, 11 times in Japan and six times in Spain, reports Maddison. From higher bases, the increases were nearly five times in Germany, four in France and three in the United States.

Test Your Internet Speed

SpeedTest - gives an estimate of your download and upload internet connection speed.

1hp car

1 horse power car

507 hp car

The Increase is Evidence of a Decrease???

Two consecutive sentences from a Washington Post article, Mortgage Rates Drop to 6.14 Percent:

Home prices grew 0.86 in the third quarter of this year, the slowest pace since 1998, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise reported today.

This slow growth "provides more evidence that the long-forecasted national depreciation in housing prices is occurring," the agency's director, James B. Lockhart, said in a statement.

So the increase is evidence of the decrease? What!!!!

Related: Coming Collapse in Housing? - 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Rates - Financial Literacy blog posts

Ad Supported Laptop Purchase

Help Me Buy a Laptop!

My computer just turned six years old! Banquo survived five years of college (three in dorms), twelve relocations (one cross-country), two operating system upgrades.
...
Unfortunately I'm completely broke and can't afford to replace him.
...
For $150 a square inch, I'll etch (almost) whatever you want on the top of my new laptop. Your ad will be shown all around the Bay Area coffee shops, start-up offices, and Web2.0 conventions! I now work at Instructables, a how-to/DIY website full of cool projects. Instructables is located at Squid Labs and I have access to their laser etching/cutting machine. Click here to see other laser etched laptops.

And it worked. Cool.

The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything

The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything from Google. And Douglas Adams: The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Compete Toolbar

A new (to me at least) toolbar is available. The Compete Toolbar seems nice. It seems to be trying to see its Trust Scores (can you trust this site) and Deal (which tells you about deals on teh site you are visiting). Both seem decent. Trust I would bet will leave off a bunch that are trustworthy but so what. If it indicates tusted sites that seems worthwhile. I like the site profiles feature.

Other popular toolbars: Google, Alexa, Yahoo.

CSS Navigation Bar Tutorial

Nice simple tutorial to create a CSS nav bar with mouseover changes: Turning a list into a navigation bar

Google Customized Search

We have setup several Google Customized search sites which seem to give good results very quickly.

Try our custom google search engines for 1) Management 2) Economics and Investing and 3) Science and Engineering.

Nice HTML color chart

HTML color chart

Stop Earthlink Spam

Earthlink has taken a spamy practice from verisign to show there ads instead of the proper response to a domain that is not found. Here is how youas the customer can fix your computer to stop being spamed by earthlink. It sure would be nice if we had some options that actually believed in customer service instead of this kind of junk.

Earthlink Redirecting Failed DNS Queries?

The practice Earthlink copied from Verisign was shut down by the administrators of the internet when Verisign did it.

Don't They Know

Don't They Know:

Howard Yermish reports:
This evening, my 4-year old daughter came downstairs for some ice cream. When the commercial for the Little Mermaid DVD came on, she said, "We don't need to see that commercial. Don't they know we already bought that movie?"

Awesome.

The Myth of Prodigy and Why it Matters by Eric Wargo, discussing a speech by Malcolm Gladwell.

Gladwell cited a mid-1980s study (Genius Revisited) of adults who had attended New York City’s prestigious Hunter College Elementary School, which only admits children with an IQ of 155 or above. Hunter College was founded in the 1920s to be a training ground for the country’s future intellectual elite. Yet the fate of its child-geniuses was, well, “simply okay.” Thirty years down the road, the Hunter alums in the study were all doing pretty well, were reasonably well adjusted and happy, and most had good jobs and many had graduate degrees. But Gladwell was struck by what he called the “disappointed tone of the book”: None of the Hunter alums were superstars or Nobel- or Pulitzer-prize winners; there were no people who were nationally known in their fields. “These were genius kids but they were not genius adults.”

NCAA Basketball

The NCAA basketball season has not started yet so there isn't much news to report. Still look at the headlines (see graphic) from ESP today: 4 are criminal and 3 others are about players being suspened or kicked off teams, 2 are about coaches. At least the 2 aobut coaches are fine. Couldn't they have some positive stories, how about writting about the success of student athletes those students that are academic stars or did some great things over the summer or explore what past basketball players are doing... Or how about stories about basketball: discuss the pick and roll or explain the swing offense or explain the effect of 3 point shooting on overall field goal percentage or discuss what the effects of relying on 3 point shoting are for a team... We just accept that the "news" of crimal activity and the like is what we should expect. I think we should expect better from the sports web sites.

Blogging Tips

What Studio 60 Can Teach Us About Blogging by Tom Schmitz. Fun post with some good tips on blog management (aimed at professional blogs not really blogs for fun).

Remember those 3x5 cards at Studio 60? Studio 60 always has more cards than will fit on their board. If something does not meet your blog's standard for quality or interest do not publish it. You might send something back for rewriting or additional work. You may decide that an article does not belong. You might even decide that an article has a bigger future somewhere else on your website, in your printed newsletter or in an industry publication.

Studio 60 is a good show by the way.