For years, I have offered health insurance to the employees of my company, Hen’s Teeth Network. December 2014 is the last month that HTN will provide health insurance. This blog post explains why and includes the spreadsheet that I used for my analysis. It is all about the numbers; this is not a political rant. Most […]
I Love Great Customer Service
Receiving fantastic customer service always makes me smile. Not only do I appreciate getting what I want, I love the feeling that a live human being paid attention to what I said. This happened to me twice in the last few days so let me share both stories with you. I sent an email to […]
Heads Up, Doc!
Added November 6, 2011: Since sending a copy of this letter to the doctor, I spoke with his office manager and him, receiving both a good explanation and sincere apologies. I have returned to his office for my FAA medical exam and had a delightful experience with everything running on time and like clockwork. Dear […]
An Open Letter to Netflix: Don’t Separate Netflix.com and Qwikster.com
Reed, Thank you for the explanation. I have been a Netflix subscriber since June 2002 and I did feel offended by the large price jump in my plan (2 Blu-Ray discs + streaming) I believe that you are making a mistake in dis-integrating the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com sites. My family receives great value from the […]
Another Boundary
I just realized that I created another boundary in my life and have been happily living with it for quite awhile, maybe a year or more. I like boundaries; they keep me sane and productive. For instance, I have two email addresses and I never use my personal address for business or my business address […]
Are Psycho-Active Drugs Ineffective and Dangerous?
There seems to be mounting evidence that psycho-active drugs are no more effective than placebos; that they may cause real harm; and that the belief that many mental illnesses are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain has never been proven but has been forwarded by the drug manufacturers. I was most persuaded by Irving […]
Opt Out of Paper Phone Books
I don’t know how well it works (yet) but I just used the National Yellow Pages Consumer Choice & Opt-Out Site to decline all five of the big books that have been delivered to our doorstep annually. Several years ago, we cut the cord and terminated our AT&T home phone service, switching to a VOIP […]
Testing CloudFlare
I have been reading about CloudFlare for some time and decided to give it a try. CloudFlare promises to speed up a web site using several technologies, including caching static content on their CDN, minifying content, and blocking access to malicious bots. I installed it on this site for testing and, at least initially, I […]
I Appreciate Taxes. Think I’m Crazy?
The California Assembly just passed a bill which would require on-line retailers, such as Amazon, to collect sales tax. A key problem underlying governments today (federal, state, county, and municipal) is that they have less revenue than expenses. (Very few governments are running at a surplus these days.) Interestingly, we-the-people are both the “owners” of government […]
Supporting Journalism
Over the last week, I have had several people actually ask me why I have not been posting here much over the last several months. It was not until yesterday, when I bumped into a man who I had not seen in several years and he asked me about this blog, that I finally twigged […]
Google’s eBookstore: Yay! eBook Licenses: Boo!
Google’s new eBookstore is open for business, selling over three million books. This is great news. I like books and I like technology and I like competition. I particularly like the partnership which Google has forged with local bricks and mortar bookstores, allowing the stores to sell ebooks through their own web sites. I will […]
Software Jobs
By day, I own a software company and occasionally write software. Wally, Dilbert’s friend, reveals all about my job in today’s strip. Click the image to read the whole comic. The disturbing question is: Which job do I hold???
Copyright Madness
You may not be aware of some of the insanity which current copyright laws create in many countries, not just the United States. Here are two songs which you may think are free and clear but which are, in fact, copyrighted and subject to royalty payments: Happy Birthday to You The Chicago-based music publisher Clayton […]
USPTO Grants Patent On ’60s Era Billing Method
Back in the Old Days, I had to pay for computer time on Michigan Terminal System (MTS) at the University of Michigan. It was a simple system: the more you used, the more you paid. MTS charged for CPU time, RAM used while your program was running, disk space used to store your files, I/O […]
Facebook’s Last Straw
Facebook added the proverbial last straw with its latest privacy faux pas. It has demonstrated, yet again, that in pursuing it’s goal of selling advertising, Facebook places very little importance on our personal privacy. Remember that, while Facebook ostensibly is a web site designed to help people connect with like-minded people, in fact Facebook is […]
Infrastructures are Important
Sometimes (often) XKCD hits the nail squarely on the head.
Shopping for a Refrigerator
Candy and I are shopping for a new refrigerator. The good news is that we don’t need to spend as much as I feared we would. The bad news is that shopping for a fridge is worse than choosing a breakfast cereal. The manufacturers and stores seem to create as many models as possible just […]
Don’t Get Ripped Off Playing Facebook Games
I know that many of you like to play the games on Facebook. That’s definitely cool. What isn’t cool is when you get ripped off for real money in the process. Examples Of Scams: A typical scam: users are offered in game currency in exchange for filling out an IQ survey. Four simple questions are […]
Garmin & XM Radio: The Best & The Worst in Customer Service
We have many opportunities to experience both good and bad customer service. Rarely, though, do we bump into extremes at both ends of the spectrum in the course of one technical support issue. Doing so makes both experiences all the more poignant. I use a Garmin GPSmap 396 coupled with a hockey puck sized XM […]
Health Care Reform is About People, Not Money
Health care reform is about people, not money. Specifically, it is our opportunity to assure that all Americans have access to good health care, not just the lucky 4/5ths of us. If your mom came to you for help getting medical care, your first response would be, “How can we make that happen?” Your first response […]
