With all of the excitement of life lately, I neglected to study more than a few hours total for my GMAT exam. However, rather than rescheduling, I decided to go forward with it and take it, just to see what happens. Thankfully, I did rather well (690), well enough to help me get accepted into the Miller MBA program (BSU). I start in the Spring!
If you had told me 8 years ago, after having finished my BS, that I would be excited about going to grad school, I would have laughed in your face. Loudly. I guess that has changed with age, and I'm now very pumped about my first two classes, ACC 501 (Financial Accounting) and MGT 500 (Managing Organizational Behavior).
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
OpenOffice 3 on Ubuntu eee edition
OpenOffice 3 is rumored to be officially released on Monday Oct. 13 (Today, technically). It was reported that the distribution was already being sent out to the mirror locations, though no official link to them was made readily available. But by simply copy-pasting-editing the link from openoffice.org I was able to download the .deb distribution to my Asus eee PC 900 running Ubuntu-eee 8.04.1:http://openoffice.bouncer.osuosl.org/?product=OpenOffice.org&os=linuxinteldeb&lang=en-US&version=3.0.0
Once downloaded and unpacked, I ran the update script:
./update /usr/lib/openoffice/
This installed OpenOffice 3.0 to /opt/openoffice.org3/ . Now I needed to do some digging and figure out a nice way for the slick Netbook-Remix interface to launch OOO 3 instead of 2.4. So I edited /usr/bin/ooffice to look like this:
#!/bin/sh
# /usr/lib/openoffice/program/soffice "$@"
/opt/openoffice.org3/program/soffice "$@"
This may not be the best practices way of accomplishing this, but it worked for me! Enjoy!
Monday, October 06, 2008
Adventures in retail
Tonight after pulling the cracked radiator from my truck, I needed to run to Walmart and then to Domino's to pick up a quick dinner for the family (mine plus nephew and in-laws).
Walmart
At Walmart, I intended to pick up some magnetic spice racks for the side of the fridge, some Capri Suns for the kids, and an SD card for my eeePC. I struck out with the magnetic spice racks, but found a decent deal on a 2GB SD card in the photo department ($12). Sweet, I thought, and reached down to pull one off the rack. LOCKED! Rats. So, I tracked down La Photo Gal and asked for her to unlock the slider deal so I could take my $12 item and be on my way to track down the Capri Suns. Nope, she said, I have to pay for that item at the photo counter. I'm not allowed to walk through the store with this $12 item without paying for it. Seriously? She's just doing her job, I'm not going to argue with her, so I pay for it, get my little bag, and head to the juice aisle, shaking my head all the way there. Somewhere some brilliant manager made that rule, and probably received a bonus for loss prevention initiatives. Woot.
Domino's
After reaching my car in the Walmart parking lot, I rang Domino's to place our order for 3 medium pizzas ($5 per) and an order of garlic cheese bread. After ordering, I was informed that my total was $32 and some change. Huh?!?!?
"Do you not have the $5 pizza deal anymore?"
"Yes, we do, but it's the special and you have to ask for it."
"Really? That's odd."
"Not really, I mean it's the special, so you have to ask for the special. Make sense?"
"Nope. If something's on sale at Walmart, do I have to tell the cashier?"
"No. They have those barcode things."
I'm pretty sure she could hear me rolling my eyes.
"Ok. What's my new total? I'd like the special."
"$20.50."
"Thanks."
*click*
*sigh*
*weep for America*
Walmart
At Walmart, I intended to pick up some magnetic spice racks for the side of the fridge, some Capri Suns for the kids, and an SD card for my eeePC. I struck out with the magnetic spice racks, but found a decent deal on a 2GB SD card in the photo department ($12). Sweet, I thought, and reached down to pull one off the rack. LOCKED! Rats. So, I tracked down La Photo Gal and asked for her to unlock the slider deal so I could take my $12 item and be on my way to track down the Capri Suns. Nope, she said, I have to pay for that item at the photo counter. I'm not allowed to walk through the store with this $12 item without paying for it. Seriously? She's just doing her job, I'm not going to argue with her, so I pay for it, get my little bag, and head to the juice aisle, shaking my head all the way there. Somewhere some brilliant manager made that rule, and probably received a bonus for loss prevention initiatives. Woot.
Domino's
After reaching my car in the Walmart parking lot, I rang Domino's to place our order for 3 medium pizzas ($5 per) and an order of garlic cheese bread. After ordering, I was informed that my total was $32 and some change. Huh?!?!?
"Do you not have the $5 pizza deal anymore?"
"Yes, we do, but it's the special and you have to ask for it."
"Really? That's odd."
"Not really, I mean it's the special, so you have to ask for the special. Make sense?"
"Nope. If something's on sale at Walmart, do I have to tell the cashier?"
"No. They have those barcode things."
I'm pretty sure she could hear me rolling my eyes.
"Ok. What's my new total? I'd like the special."
"$20.50."
"Thanks."
*click*
*sigh*
*weep for America*
eeePC and Ubuntu
Shortly after getting my eeePC 900 I decided to ditch the installed Xandros and installed Ubuntu 8.04 eee edition. It took some tweaking to get a few things working properly, but eventually made it's way to stable and fine.
Then the Ubuntu eee team (which I think is mostly one guy doing the work and thousands asking for it) released 8.04.1 which included a sweet "Netbook Remix" interface. I installed that on the 4GB SSD drive, and setup the 16GB SSD drive as the /home mount. Now, though, I was having speed issues. When running, everything seemed to be "delayed": typing, clicking, etc. After suffering through it for a bit, and doing some research, I decided to start over. I formatted both drives, this time formatting the 16GB /home drive as ext2 instead of the journaling ext3 filesystem. Then I reinstalled Ubuntu 8.04.1 with no problems. Other than the known "no audio after hibernate" bug, I now have zero issues with Ubuntu on this eeePC.
I wish I had a free XP license. I'd like to try installing XP on it and see how that runs.
I wish I could find a good, inexpensive car charger for it now...
Then the Ubuntu eee team (which I think is mostly one guy doing the work and thousands asking for it) released 8.04.1 which included a sweet "Netbook Remix" interface. I installed that on the 4GB SSD drive, and setup the 16GB SSD drive as the /home mount. Now, though, I was having speed issues. When running, everything seemed to be "delayed": typing, clicking, etc. After suffering through it for a bit, and doing some research, I decided to start over. I formatted both drives, this time formatting the 16GB /home drive as ext2 instead of the journaling ext3 filesystem. Then I reinstalled Ubuntu 8.04.1 with no problems. Other than the known "no audio after hibernate" bug, I now have zero issues with Ubuntu on this eeePC.
I wish I had a free XP license. I'd like to try installing XP on it and see how that runs.
I wish I could find a good, inexpensive car charger for it now...
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Is this green?
I don't know about "green", but it's certainly seeming to be a good move for the green in my wallet.
I purchased a 1996 Cavalier that needed some work:
$500 car
$15 part to fix it
$120 two tires
$40 battery
-----
$675 in total
Today, I re-filled the tank. Just shy of 400 miles on that tank, with a good mix of city and highway driving. I achieved 29.25 mpg. Not bad for a 12 year old car that's been sitting for 2 years, eh? :-)
Now if my truck would stop overheating and a fishing boat would magically appear in my backyard, I'd be all set!
I purchased a 1996 Cavalier that needed some work:
$500 car
$15 part to fix it
$120 two tires
$40 battery
-----
$675 in total
Today, I re-filled the tank. Just shy of 400 miles on that tank, with a good mix of city and highway driving. I achieved 29.25 mpg. Not bad for a 12 year old car that's been sitting for 2 years, eh? :-)
Now if my truck would stop overheating and a fishing boat would magically appear in my backyard, I'd be all set!
Treasure hunt
I think this place would be a blast to visit. I would find it fun to imagine the story behind some of the items for sale there.
Speaking of treasures, my father-in-law came over the other day with a truck full of computers and parts. We spent a few hours gutting the old systems and testing some things before recycling the remaining things we didn't want. I have a box of DVD/CD drives, some old RAM, NICs, a nice SATA controller, a TV Tuner card, some great Antec power supplies, a working 17" LCD monitor, a laptop to work on (seems to have a short in the keyboard), and some SoundBlaster sound cards. $10 for all of it. :) Good geek kill indeed.
Speaking of treasures, my father-in-law came over the other day with a truck full of computers and parts. We spent a few hours gutting the old systems and testing some things before recycling the remaining things we didn't want. I have a box of DVD/CD drives, some old RAM, NICs, a nice SATA controller, a TV Tuner card, some great Antec power supplies, a working 17" LCD monitor, a laptop to work on (seems to have a short in the keyboard), and some SoundBlaster sound cards. $10 for all of it. :) Good geek kill indeed.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Steal Underpants
Why is it so bad for companies to make money? I hear all of this "windfall profits tax" talk coming from the left side of the political spectrum and I just don't understand it.
How can you punish a company that is making profits? Doesn't that just mean that they're doing what a business is supposed to do? Provide a product or service that a consumer can purchase, and do so in a way that brings more revenue than cost.
If you punish a business for doing just that, what keeps them in business? I was taught at an early age that if I did something that warranted punishment, I should not do it again. I did not like punishment.
I guess in the future, all businesses should be run by masochists.
All of this thought was fueled by the news today stating that Exxon had recorded record profits for this quarter. In most articles, the fact that the profit margins were only 9.7% is barely mentioned, if at all. What's also missing is that many companies operate on margins that are much larger than this, including media/publishing, who often target 20%+ margins, and banks and financial institutions that are still operating on 20%+ margins despite the rocky US economy.
How can you punish a company that is making profits? Doesn't that just mean that they're doing what a business is supposed to do? Provide a product or service that a consumer can purchase, and do so in a way that brings more revenue than cost.
If you punish a business for doing just that, what keeps them in business? I was taught at an early age that if I did something that warranted punishment, I should not do it again. I did not like punishment.
I guess in the future, all businesses should be run by masochists.
All of this thought was fueled by the news today stating that Exxon had recorded record profits for this quarter. In most articles, the fact that the profit margins were only 9.7% is barely mentioned, if at all. What's also missing is that many companies operate on margins that are much larger than this, including media/publishing, who often target 20%+ margins, and banks and financial institutions that are still operating on 20%+ margins despite the rocky US economy.
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