Monday, June 27, 2005
Men In Coats
Stop whatever you are doing and watch Men In Coats. Now.
(10 MB Windows Media)
(10 MB Windows Media)
Marshall & Ilsley's Metavante to buy GHR | Reuters.com
Marshall & Ilsley's Metavante to buy GHR | Reuters.com
GHR is the parent company of my current employer, Loansoft. So now (or as soon as the deal closes) we will be Loansoft, owned by GHR, owned by Metavante, owned by M&I. I hope they'll be merciful.
NEW YORK, June 27 (Reuters) - Marshall & Ilsley Corp.'s financial technology unit, Metavante Corp., on Monday said it agreed to buy GHR Systems Inc. for $65 million to add residential mortgage origination and consumer finance services.
...
Established in 1985, Wayne, Pennsylvania-based GHR provides underwriting, processing and closing technologies for companies in the residential mortgage and consumer finance industries. Fifteen of the top 50 U.S. mortgage lenders are GHR clients.
GHR is the parent company of my current employer, Loansoft. So now (or as soon as the deal closes) we will be Loansoft, owned by GHR, owned by Metavante, owned by M&I. I hope they'll be merciful.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Building a WallTop
GRYNX is featuring a step-by-step article on building a WallTop . What is a WallTop? It's a junk laptop converted to an intelligent picture frame. Intriguing, no?
There's a stack of ancient (but working, as far as I know) laptops in the server room at my office. I've been told I can have them if I want.
So, I had this laptop booting on a CD with XPE (Windows XP Preboot Environment) made with BartPE to provide me with the log files from my servers. That was basically it. But it soon took up too much space on my desk and ended up in a corner where it was never used or looked at. But hey - why not take this old laptop, break it down to it’s pieces, mount it into a frame and hang it in the living room showing a slideshow?? It’s definitely silent as it doesn’t have an hard drive. Well, first I was sceptical myself. Power cable and network cable would be difficult to hide, and drilling an hole into my neighbours living room wouldn’t solve anything. Hmm, but let’s go wireless and replace the original power cable with an thin cable in the same colour as the wall!!
So I did.
There's a stack of ancient (but working, as far as I know) laptops in the server room at my office. I've been told I can have them if I want.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
NOT ME
I am getting a lot of mail for Professor Andrew Rich of the Department of Political Science at CUNY.
Wrong Andrew Rich. I am Andrew Rich, the software developer in Northern California, not Andrew Rich the CUNY professor or Andrew Rich the Oregon vintner.
Wrong Andrew Rich. I am Andrew Rich, the software developer in Northern California, not Andrew Rich the CUNY professor or Andrew Rich the Oregon vintner.
From Expo to Mega-Depot
Our local Expo Design Center will be closing soon:
The problem with Expo, IMO, is that it's a very elaborate showroom filled with very expensive fixtures, but no real-world solutions. We go to look at how we would want to do a kitchen or bathroom or floor, and then consider how we can do it for one-tenth the price--seriously, Expo prices are beyond "pricey" and into "excessive".
The EPA location shares a giant building with the neighboring Home Depot, so the company plans to make an even larger HD store out of the combined space. Should be interesting.
Home Depot will shut down two of its high-end design stores, in Concord and East Palo Alto, and replace them with two more Home Depots.
Expo Design Center, which caters to a wealthier customer base than Home Depot, sells high-end fixtures to people mainly looking to remodel their kitchens and bathrooms.
The problem with Expo, IMO, is that it's a very elaborate showroom filled with very expensive fixtures, but no real-world solutions. We go to look at how we would want to do a kitchen or bathroom or floor, and then consider how we can do it for one-tenth the price--seriously, Expo prices are beyond "pricey" and into "excessive".
The EPA location shares a giant building with the neighboring Home Depot, so the company plans to make an even larger HD store out of the combined space. Should be interesting.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
How To Duck Cell Phone Taxes
How To Duck Cell Phone Taxes - Forbes.com
This falls under the ":thunk: I shoulda thought of that!" category. I wonder if you need a "real" out of state address, like a PO box, or if it can just be any random address? East Palo Alto charges its own "Utility Tax" on my Sprint PCS account on top of California's and federal taxes.
Cell phones have not been proven to cause cancer, so why exactly are they taxed like they do?
...
Exorbitant cell phone taxes may seem like one of life's annoyances you just can't do anything about. In fact, as I recently discovered, you can.
This falls under the ":thunk: I shoulda thought of that!" category. I wonder if you need a "real" out of state address, like a PO box, or if it can just be any random address? East Palo Alto charges its own "Utility Tax" on my Sprint PCS account on top of California's and federal taxes.
Monday, June 06, 2005
Restaurant Reviews
At long last, I'm up to date on restaurant reviews with thirteen new reviews up, covering the last two and a half months.
Rumination of the Day
The other day I was deep in thought about and suddenly had one of those "A-HA!" moments. It's not that I came up with a solution to my problem, but rather I decided to forget my troubles and go watch an '80s Norwegian music video instead.
(Kim Moser, via ruminate.com)
Friday, June 03, 2005
What's iSteve wearing today?
You can find out only at "The Joy of Tech!"
Requires Flash
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Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Decisions, decisions
My office PC has an ATI Radeon VE video card with a DVI connector. Right now I am using a DVI-SVGA "Y" cable to run two Dell M992 19" CRTs in Windows' "extended desktop" mode, for an effective desktop resolution of 2560x1024 (32-bit color, 85Hz).
I have two Dell 1704FPT 17" LCD monitors available (from a shipment of seven, five of which have already been deployed to other lucky people). The 1704FPT can run in either digital (DVI) or analog (SVGA) mode, and the Radeon VE can run one display directly through DVI, or two when the DVI connector is split to two SVGA as I have now.
So my decision is this. Should I:
A) Do nothing. Keep my dual 19" CRT setup.
B) Swap both 19" CRTs for 17" LCDs. Bear in mind that 19" CRTs have roughly 17" viewable area, while 17" LCDs use the full panel. So the viewing areas are equivalent. However, the LCDs would be running in analog mode, and can't display 1280x1024 at 85Hz.
C) Swap both 19" CRTs for a single 17" LCD running in digital mode.
I'm leaning toward "B", sacrificing the high refresh rate for acres of reclaimed desk space. It's my understanding that refresh rate is not nearly as important on LCDs as it is on CRTs, anyway. I'll have to deal with envious glances from other people who don't even have one LCD when they look at my two, but Rank Hath Its Privileges.
Your opinions?
I have two Dell 1704FPT 17" LCD monitors available (from a shipment of seven, five of which have already been deployed to other lucky people). The 1704FPT can run in either digital (DVI) or analog (SVGA) mode, and the Radeon VE can run one display directly through DVI, or two when the DVI connector is split to two SVGA as I have now.
So my decision is this. Should I:
A) Do nothing. Keep my dual 19" CRT setup.
B) Swap both 19" CRTs for 17" LCDs. Bear in mind that 19" CRTs have roughly 17" viewable area, while 17" LCDs use the full panel. So the viewing areas are equivalent. However, the LCDs would be running in analog mode, and can't display 1280x1024 at 85Hz.
C) Swap both 19" CRTs for a single 17" LCD running in digital mode.
I'm leaning toward "B", sacrificing the high refresh rate for acres of reclaimed desk space. It's my understanding that refresh rate is not nearly as important on LCDs as it is on CRTs, anyway. I'll have to deal with envious glances from other people who don't even have one LCD when they look at my two, but Rank Hath Its Privileges.
Your opinions?
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