First Time Watching Glenn Beck

// December 17th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Uncategorized

I’ve been watching Glenn Beck for the the first time for about ten minutes now and I’m speechless.  Knowing millions of people watch this seriously concerns me for a couple of reasons.  I just don’t understand the disconnect from reality and the massive generalizations they get away with.  Worse, they overlook such key components of issues in an effort to serve the points they’re trying to make that they actually distort reality.

Now I suppose from a pure entertainment point of view anything goes – but this program has the words Fox News spinning in the bottom left corner at all times – and I just don’t believe most people can separate what one part of the screen says from what the talking head in the center is preaching.  I say preaching very intentionally.  I think this is very intentional and calculated though.

Sites.Local – for developers with too many local sites

// December 5th, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

As an ASP/C# developer it’s key I work locally and save time wasted uploading files after every change to a page.  Then, when I’ve got a bunch of changes to share with a client and I want to update a staging/production environment, I can do it all at once.  Well, I resumed working on a project this afternoon that I haven’t worked on for a couple days – and I just couldn’t recall the local site address!

My laptop runs Vista Business and I use Internet Information Services (IIS) to run local apps.  To map the various apps and keep everything running on port 80 I take advantage of the Windows Hosts file to create custom urls for local apps.  For example, I can create an entry for clientname.localdev which enables me to setup and view a site at http://clientname.localdev/.  You can learn more about Hosts files here if they’re new to you.

11/8/09: I’m happy, kind of.

// November 8th, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

I’m pretty happy right now.  The House just passed the epic healthcare reform bill and kept public funding of abortions out of it.  I’m having a stream of thoughts as I watch this unfold on TV and the web though:

People who complain about the government take over of health care and offer instead that the private sector is a better solution should keep in mind the free market approach got us into this in the first place.

Citi Reports Themselves for Credit Card Fraud: A Lesson in Horrible Systems at Large Companies

// August 26th, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Dear Citi Professional Card folks:

I’d like to tell you a tale. A tale involving a handsome young customer (me) and a confused, crazy consumer credit card company (you).

My tale begins earlier today, about 11:00 am. I got a phone call from an 816 area code (Mo) – but I don’t know anyone in Missouri so I let the call go to voicemail. Minutes later, I check my voicemail and to my delight I have a new message…but it’s not a person that called…it’s a computer – the Computron 3000 I suspect. Computron is telling me that Citi wants to talk to me about my account and that I should call them at (800) 388-2200. I think, geez, I better call in case there’s something going on. Interest rates scare me.

TheIdeaStartup Is Finally Here!

// December 23rd, 2008 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Yesterday afternoon Ray and I launched TheIdeaStartup.com to the world. TheIdeaStartup is all about ideas and creating businesses. The site combines the power of social networking, online team collaboration, and business planning software in an online environment friendly towards teams. We really make it easier for students, entrepreneurs, and teams to write business plans and refine financial projections.