I Love Janeane Garofalo Even More Now

Now, aside from the fact that I find Janeane Garofalo very attractive, she's an extremely intelligent person.  Big bonus points!  :)  She's definitely one of the few people willing to make a statement that she truly believes in and stand behind that statement with both facts and her reputation.

Now, until I saw this, I had a lot of respect for Janeane.  I now have even more: Janeane Garofalo on the Tea Party.  And Glenn Beck (the white supremecist, right-wing racist that he is) made me love her even more with this.


Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Cap'n Bligh's Popularity Sinks

Apparently Cap'n Bligh's government is reeling at the news that their popularity is at an all-time low.  Personally, I cannot understand how they find this news anything other than utterly expected.

Cap'n Bligh has been selling off Queensland's assets including Qld Rail, Port of Brisbane and pretty much anything else she could find a buyer for- luckily Qld Motorways couldn't find a buyer (after the total financial failure of the Clem 7 Tunnel project).

We've been waiting for a long time in Queensland for a decent opposition to arise and it looks like, even though this hasn't yet happened, the pitiful opposition that exists may finally have a chance of winning power.  John-Paul Langbroek, the current LNP leader, is still not the preferred LNP leader (according to recent polls), so he has to be very careful in the remaining time leading up to our next election in just over a year.

The current appalling polling of Cap'n Bligh's government has nothing at all to do with the federal government results in the recent election - she was losing popularity long before then and her government's poor performance did badly effect the last federal election for the Labor Party.

Out of interest, yes I willingly voted for Peter Beattie's Labor government in the past.  Anna Bligh's Labor government, however, is toxic for Queensland and there's no way I could vote for them.  Any Queenslander who doesn't want to see the entire State dug up and sold off to the highest bidder (whilst speed cameras replicate throughout Queensland like the rabbits that we're desperately trying to keep out) needs to have a long, hard look at what Cap'n Bligh's government has been doing to our State before casting their next vote.


Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Microsoft Removes Drive Extender

Eriq O. Neale alerted me this morning about 4AM that Microsoft, in yet another example of how shortsighted and mind-numbingly stupid they can be, have decided to pull their Drive Extender technology from all future products (SBS 2011 Essentials, Vail (the upcoming Home Server) and Windows Storage Server R2 Essentials).

Drive Extender definitely has merit - it allows the use of lighter hardware in locations where a full server isn't required (such as the products listed above), meaning that smaller clients and those using these products don't need the expense of full RAID setups where Drive Extender can provide the redundancy they need (obviously, given a proper backup and restore regime and a proper archival process).  What this decision is going to result in is higher costs for smaller businesses.  That's not a good thing!  :(


Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Why I "Pray" For The End Of Religion

I can understand why, until a century or so ago, people needed (as in felt the need, not *actually* needed) to believe in some form of bearded sky fairy to explain the unexplainable, however since then (actually, since before then) we've been getting a lot better at explaining natural phenomena that were previously in the realm of the "supernatural".

As we've been able to build on previous discoveries, theories and experiments to come up with better and better ones, we're getting further and further away from things that remain as yet unexplained.

The more we understand our environment and the universe in which we live, the less sense any form of "supernatural" being makes and the less "need" there is for one.

Oh, people will still believe - it is amazing the things that some people are willing to accept because someone once told them it was true - but there's no proof that the Christian god is more true than the Hindu gods, nor the Islamic god, nor the Taoism Immortals, nor the Sikh god, nor the Zoroastrian Creator, nor... You can see where I'm going with this.

There are hundreds of gods. Most people don't believe in most of these gods, and not everybody believes in your god (whomever that may be). The difference between us is that whilst, like you, I don't believe in any of these other gods, I also don't believe in yours - our lists are *almost* identical, it's just that I add one more god I don't believe in.

There's no proof any god exists, and there's no proof any "supernatural" beings of any sort whatsoever exist. With machines like the LHC, we're dispelling more and more of these myths as we gain more and more knowledge of our surroundings. I "pray" for the day when mankind will drop the facade that is religion and will stop hating on each other for reasons that don't exist.


Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Microsoft Marketing Finally Gets Something Right

As we all know, the Bill and Jerry series of adverts were able to achieve two things: 1. They proved how totally and utterly out of touch with reality Microsoft had become, and 2. They paid Jerry Seinfeld a lot of money to show how mouch of his shine he'd lost.  Oh, and they canned the series of adverts before they got to show them all.

Now, it seems that someone in at Microsoft's Marketing department got fired and replaced by someone who has a clue.  And whoever it was, THANKYOU.  Whoever is responsible for this advert - both in at Microsoft and whichever agency they contracted to do it - finally gets that tacky, ill-targeted, esoteric adverts are a waste of time if they are trying to generate positive results.

Have a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAhJTxC1C8w and see if you agree with me - this has to be the best advert Microsoft has released in a long, long time, if ever.


Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Mr. Ballmer, Please Step Back. Step Away from the Vehicle.

Does this sound very much like what I've been saying for quite some time, or what?  :)


Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Future Directions Of Technology Seminars

Well, the first of these seminars was run in Brisbane on 1 November and received quite positive feedback from attendees.  The next two will be Monday (Alice Springs, 8 Nov) and Wednesday (Darwin, 10 Nov) then Cairns (15 Nov) and Mackay (16 Nov) and then we're finishing up in Toowoomba on Thursday 25th November.

More information about the seminars can be found at http://www.smbitproseminars.com.au/ - the seminars are focussed at SMB owners and contain as little techno-brain-explode language as we've been able to whittle it down to.

We're also looking at catching up with local SMB IT folk in these regions so we can see what SMBiT Professionals can do to be of assistance to them.  There are a lot of SMBs in regional Australia and the SMB IT companies supporting them could find that membership of ANZ SMBiT Professionals could be of benefit.  The more regional members we have, the more regional services, meetings, seminars and training sessions we will be able to participate in - it also means that vendors will have much more easy contact with these regional members, making it easier for these members to form good relationships with a number of SMB-focussed vendors.

So, if you're in one of these regions or if you know someone in one of these regions who could benefit from these seminars, please have them look at the site and register on EventBrite.
Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Extremely Cool Mobile Applications

OK, so I've not used all of these myself (some because I don't have the appropriate hardware, some because I haven't yet tried the apps and some because they are *almost* available) but they all at least *sound* rather cool...

iRunXtream - running and heart rate monitor

(There's a number of these available for the iPhone and Android devices (at least).)

Stethoscope Expert 2011 - Use your iPhone as an electronic stethoscope and learn to interpret stethoscope sounds in minutes

Splashtop Remote for iPad - desktop PC remote control - kinda like the upcoming VMWare app, but here already and quite stable!  ;)

MobileNoter - OneNote access for your iPhone and iPad

Noterize - Digital note-taking done right

Office2 HD - Edit Google Docs and Microsoft Office (Word and Excel) documents on your iPad

Google app for iPad and Android for Googel Docs on the horizon and getting larger...

NASA App and NASA App HD - the first app I downloaded for my iPhone


Are there other seriously useful or serious cool apps you'd like to add to this list?  Let me know and I'll keep this list updated...


Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie