Barnson.org

FTC Outlaws Pre-Recorded Telemarketing Campaigns. Many of you may remember my previous rant regarding pre-recorded warranty telemarketing. What I thought was illegal then actually is illegal now, and marketers must have an easy-to-find opt-out method even if you have a prior business relationship by December 2008.

Hooray for common sense.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/aug/20/olympics2008.china1

China sets aside four “protest zones” in Beijing during the Olympics. To protest, one had to file an application months in advance.

Two women who filed to protest were sentenced to a year’s forced labor in a re-education camp.

Another would-be protester was bustled into an unmarked vehicle by police officers and never heard from again.

A woman who wished to protest the release of her son’s murderer from prison was forced by police to forego finishing the protest application process.

One applicant included a child, and was denied.

Two others did not provide enough information, and were denied.

The remaining protest requests — seventy-seven in total, including these — were “voluntarily” withdrawn by those who filed them.

Fifteen foreigners who attempted to protest during the games were quickly deported by China.

Wang Wei, vice-president of the Beijing organising committee, told reporters they should be “satisfied” with the protest zones.

“The idea of demonstration is that you are hoping to resolve issues, not to demonstrate for the sake of demonstrating. We are pleased that issues have been resolved through dialogue and communication — this is how we do it in Chinese culture.”

All three protest zones, in city parks far from the Olympic venues, are blissfully quiet this morning.

This is, after all, how they do it in Chinese culture.

Searching through the history of barnson.org it doesn’t seem we’ve ever written about online web conferencing. I’m currently looking for a good solution to do some online meetings because I’m sick of wasting all my time driving around town from meeting to meeting. Also, a lot of people I work with are out of town, and airfare is making travel prohibitive.

After searching through what seem to be the top solutions available for general small business use, I’m concluding that the technology hasn’t gotten to the plug-and-play functionality. If I want to talk to somebody I pick up a phone and punch some numbers. If I want to go online and hold a meeting, with audio, visual and shared desktop, then it gets complicated.

I’ve got Adobe Connect and Yugma as my top two contenders. Yugma looks cool because they’ve lowered the cost and are hosting the connection by eliminating audio and video. Have Skype running in tandem and yugma can work fine. Adobe Connect looks like it has everything on the screen but the cost is more. Anyway, these are my top 2 contenders right now.

What do you guys think about web conferencing and providers?

I have nothing further to say, but the minimum post length of ten words requires me to say something.

This cartoon says it all.

hey all.. as you might know I have been directing a film called “Ninjas Vs. Zombies” and we just released our third trailer today.

I’d love your you to take a peek. www.nvzmovie.com

Found an interesting article today…

Ripon College, in Wisconsin, has started offering free mountain bikes and helmets to freshmen, who vow not to bring a car on campus. Private donors have driven the $300-per-student program. Ripon’s initiative represents the rising concern for skyrocketing oil costs.

High gas prices and economic troubles have squeezed college students. University and college bike-sharing programs have filled up quickly. Schools see an opening to guide students toward bike riding, while the sting of fuel costs is still fresh.

The environmentally conscious students do no need huge incentives to pick up their bicycles. Schools have scrambles to to revamp biking paths and bike-loan programs. State University of New York-Albany is readying three mile biking path around campus. At Auburn University, the student union has set up bike maintenance shops and bike-loan programs. University of California is renown for their bike riding programs.

Several American college campuses have become the size of small cities. By meeting environmental goals, schools can save money and promote an environmentally conscious lifestyle. Students can also get some much needed exercise.

I am glad that they are taking a look at how they can help be part of a solution. I see the bike offering as more than just savings on gas and the emissions. This offer can also help with the students health. Biking makes for great exercise.

IM conversation with my brother regarding my appearance on Fox13 news flying a model aircraft and being interviewed at the same time:

(01:26:12 PM) matt-msn: I have a hard time talking while flying a squirrely little airplane like the one they asked me to hover for the camera. I hope I didn’t come off like too much of a doofus. (01:26:33 PM) The Mystic Programmer: That’s ALWAYS the problem. (01:26:34 PM) matt-msn: Imagine juggling with one hand while balancing a baseball bat in the other and having someone interview you. (01:26:50 PM) The Mystic Programmer: One of the rules of game demos – you always have one person talking and someone else demo-ing. (01:27:03 PM) The Mystic Programmer: Because you cannot play the game and sound like a non-idiot at the same time. (01:27:05 PM) matt-msn: Heh, NOW you tell me! (01:27:17 PM) The Mystic Programmer: Hey, I have my own interview of me doing that as proof. (01:27:46 PM) matt-msn: Quote of the day! (01:28:12 PM) The Mystic Programmer: I liked the discussion about the Christmas presents. “Uh…. I forgot…” (01:29:10 PM) matt-msn: Archived for all time: my brother said I sounded like an idiot 🙂 (01:30:08 PM) The Mystic Programmer: Nah, but you did sound distracted.

Speaking as a guy who has trouble forming sentences while playing the piano, I have to agree.

So I had to shut down one of my ESX 3.5 virtual machines today, to remove a virtual NIC that wasn’t necessary anymore. When I went to start it up, I get an internal error. So I look in the logs, and see that ESX is claiming my license has expired. Well, it hasn’t, so off to the VMWare site I go.

Go to the knowledge base site, but it’s down for maintenance. Figures, just when I need it, it’s not working. This should have been an ominous sign, but it didn’t click at the time.

So next I go to the forums, where I find this gem.

Long story short, everyone who’s running the 3.5 U2 version of ESX Server cannot start or VMotion a virtual machine because the licensing bugs out on August 12th. Seriously, August 11th, you’re fine, August 12th, no VMs will power on.

Sounds to me like someone put a literal time bomb in the ESX code. And by the link above, it has blown up quite well.

The workaround isn’t that bad, but this is still quite the black eye for VMWare, which was bought recently by EMC and seems to be suffering from “I’ve been bought by the big multi-corp (EMC, Symantec, MS) and now can’t be quick, nimble, or bug-free anymore because of corporate beaurocracy”.

Hopefully UltraMegaCorp doesn’t feel any pain from this, as they might have some 24/7-type servers that can’t go down.

My $.02 Weed

Heath Ledger? Tim Russert? George Carlin? Tony Snow? Estelle Geddes? Bo Diddley? Sydney Pollack? Charlton Heston? Bobby Fischer? Evel Kneivel? Robert Goulet? Pavarotti? Merv Griffin?

And Now Bernie Mac?

What is up with the last 365 days? Maybe its just a bum year, but these were folks I kind of followed at one point or another.

(Not to mention the losses of people I cared about, knew, a Matriarch in my family, beloved members of others families.. people who touched my life personally as well – but, I mean, look at that list – and that doesn’t even include Bhutto, Hinkley, or other niche celebs)

Just too weird not to say something:

A cloned dog Mormon mink-lined handcuffs tantalizing mystery.

Yeah. When I served a mission, just about every male missionary talked about this old story (over a decade after the fact).