Depressing

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February 14th, 2012Comments

Exhausting:)

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January 6th, 2012Comments

Slow.

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December 27th, 2011Comments

It’s coming up on Christmas and lots of people will be buying iPods, Kindles and other gadgets for their loved ones. I thought I might suggest a few ideas for the Geek Dad, which is probably what I qualify for.

In this version, I thought I would focus on some books I really enjoyed this year. Links are affiliate links that will show you where to get audiobook downloads, CDs, ebooks or good old books made from dead trees.

Here’s my list from my favorites this year. I’m cheating a bit because some of these are series, not just individual books.

1.) My favorite of the year has to be Daemon by Daniel Suarez. This is actually a two part book with the second book called Freedom (TM). This two book series is all about a mad scientist who dies and leaves behind a computer Daemon to take over and reform the world. Lots of good geek stuff, action and an fun plot. The book goes fast and the narrator in the audiobook version do a great job.

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December 12th, 2011Comments

A couple of years ago, I wrote about Fake Blogs being used to promote marketing scams. It seems that the fake bloggers have moved on to become Fake News sites.

The fake blog scam used a fake blog to show how the fake blogger had lost weight using 2 magic products they saw on Oprah. They gave rave reviews to the products and had lots of fake comments too. They link you to a site to get supposedly free samples. If you signed up you got put on a monthly subscription for $70 per month or something like that, without really knowing you signed up for anything.

Ads for these kinds of sites were all over the internet, including the big search engines like Google. Google took steps to stop in on their site by banning everyone whoever ran an ad to such a site. They did it without appeal or warning. Just banned people for life. They banned me too because I had tested ads to see if they were hard to get approved. They weren’t hard to get approved. Google had no problems with them until much later when the FTC got involved. Despite Google’s harsh treatment of its customers, at least you won’t find those ads there any more.

Not so for Bing, Huffington Post, Fox News and other big name sites. They still run ads for these scammers.

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December 1st, 2011Comments

Senator Ron Wyden is one of the few politicians anywhere who seems to really understands the Internet and the implications of Government intrusions into our privacy. He stands up to the Media industry and it’s attack on the rights of innovators.

If you want to understand some to the big issues like the so called PROTECT IP act and how the government has a secret interpretation of the Patriot Act that would upset people if we only knew what it was.

If you have 35 minutes watch this video interview with Senator Wyden.

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October 19th, 2011Comments

The Help continues to be the seasons best selling audio book, no doubt helped by the big release of the movie version. If you liked the movie, it’s worth giving the audio book a listen.

Also, new on the charts is Dick Cheney’s story of his time in Washington. Whether you like him or hate him, he’s had an inside view of goings on back in DC for a very long time. If you’re a political junkie, it might be of interest.

Here’s September’s top 20 audio books:

1. The Help (Unabridged) by Kathryn Stockett
Summary:

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid, Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone…
Click to hear an audio sample of The Help (Unabridged) audiobook…

2. Kill Me If You Can (Unabridged) by James Patterson, Marshall Karp
Summary: Matthew Bannon, a poor art student living in New York City, finds a duffel bag filled with diamonds during a chaotic attack at Grand Central Station. Plans for a worry-free life with his gorgeous girlfriend, Katherine, fill his thoughts – until he realizes that he is being hunted, and that whoever is after him won’t stop until they have reclaimed the diamonds and exacted their revenge. Trailing him is the Ghost, the world’s greatest assassin, who has just pulled off his most high-profile …
Click to hear an audio sample of Kill Me If You Can (Unabridged) audiobook…

3. In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir (Unabridged) by Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney
Summary: In this eagerly anticipated memoir, former Vice President Dick Cheney delivers an unyielding portrait of American politics over nearly 40 years and shares personal reflections on his role as one of the most steadfast and influential statesmen in the history of our country. The public perception of Dick Cheney has long been something of a contradiction. He has been viewed as one of the most powerful vice presidents: secretive, even mysterious, and at the same time opinionated and unflinchi…
Click to hear an audio sample of In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir (Unabridged) audiobook…

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September 14th, 2011Comments

It is being widely reported that Amazon and the state legislature have declared truce in the ongoing effort to get Amazon to collect sales taxes. In the deal that passed the legislature last Friday, Amazon and other online retailers get to delay collecting sales taxes until September 2012 so that they may try to lobby for a federal solution to the tax issue. In exchange, Amazon is going to drop its proposed initiative to block the law.

Amazon had earlier offered to create 7,000 jobs in California by building multiple distribution centers in California. Amazon still wants to do that and asked for safe harbor if they go ahead, but the legislature didn’t accept that. They say that the opportunity to create jobs will have to wait until January.

It’s too bad that the only real sense of urgency in Sacramento is to collect more taxes and not to create more jobs.

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September 14th, 2011Comments

The Sacramento Bee published an article describing Amazon’s new offer to California’s Governor Brown and the Legislature. Amazon is apparently offering to spend tens of millions of dollars on new distribution centers in California and hire 7,000 people in exchange for the state delaying until 2014 a law requiring out of state retailers to collect sales tax for the state.

The law could mean that Amazon has to collect $200 million in sales taxes for the state. But the status of the law is uncertain. Amazon refuses to collect the sales tax.

As a result of the new law, Amazon terminated business relationships with 25,000 small businesses based in California to protect itself from having to to collect the sales tax. This has cost the state lots of jobs and lost income taxes as well.

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September 2nd, 2011Comments

My time with Steve Jobs happened a very long time ago. It was early 1980, or perhaps late 1979, and I was a freshman at Stanford. I heard that Steve Jobs was coming to talk to some students in a small group session. I don’t actually recall why it caught my attention. I had probably heard of Apple computers back then, but I had never seen one. The only computers I had ever seen where in huge boxes behind thick glass windows.

Somehow, I decided to go to the event. It was over in Branner Hall across the street from my dorm complex, Wilbur. We met in a big room. It was kind of dark and had a fireplace. I did a quick search on Branner and found a picture of the room.

We all settled in with Jobs sitting down at the head of our circle. He was a young guy. Full of energy. I listened with great interest to what he had to say. The thing I remember was his vision of what computers would look like in our future and his excitement about the day his vision would come true.

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August 26th, 2011Comments