February 28th, 2012 by JCBaker
For years I have been looking for portable, battery-powered external hard drive. I do a lot of consulting and always keep backups of my work, so I keep a portable external hard drive with me. I also have an extensive music library that I want to have readily available to access from my laptop and portable devices, but I hate constantly moving music files to my “iDevices” just to keep the selection fresh, and all too often, I’ll want to hear some songs in my collection that I didn’t think to move.
Wait, I could do all of that on iCloud (or any other cloud service), right? Sure, if I want to wait for files to upload / download, and I want to pay for all the bandwidth to move the data – I’m usually on the road or at a client site when I want to move data and I don’t jailbreak my devices anymore – it’s just too much of a hassle for limited benefit and extra instability.
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February 5th, 2012 by JCBaker
OK, I’m strange. I spent about half the drive to work this morning considering dimensions. Came up with a few insights that I’m sure I could have read somewhere…
“People” living in an n-dimensional universe can only fully perceive n-1 dimensions unless they (or other things in the universe) move.
The only way to know that your n-dimensional universe exists in n+1(or more) space is to move. You have to be able to measure distance accurately to determine how your universe “curves” around the extra dimension(s). (picture a 2-dimensional closed universe wrapped around a sphere{3 dimensions}).
There’s more, but I don’t want your heads to explode.
February 4th, 2012 by JCBaker
I have this love/hate relationship with Excel, especially Excel 2007. I haven’t played with Excel 2010 yet, so this may extend to it as well.
I won’t go into a lot of history here, but I had Visicalc a gazillion years ago, then Lotus 1-2-3 (the text version). In fact in Enron’s early days, I automated some of the curve calculations one of the VPs had built in a version of 1-2-3 running on a Sun workstation using Lotus’ macro language they had extended from the original Visicalc.
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October 11th, 2011 by JCBaker
OK, I know that some people expect Apple to go to pot with the loss of their main visionary, Steve Jobs, but SO SOON?
I recently submitted an app to the App Store and requested promo codes to enable me to give free copies to reviewers. Every time I tried, I would get an error message telling me to email support, so I did:
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April 4th, 2011 by JCBaker
Several years ago, I joined a software company who wanted to open a branch office in Houston as a base to cover the energy industry. They already had made some sales to energy companies, but wanted someone who knew the industry better to lead the effort. I happened to be tiring of constantly travelling for my partnership, so this seemed like a perfect match.
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March 14th, 2011 by CmputrAce
I got this note from a friend who was on a project that was out of control. This is one example.
I’m really torn about this… There are over 250 hourly contractors on this IT project of about 450 people that are being required to attend three-day offsite meeting by the contracting company. This wouldn’t be a problem except that:
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March 9th, 2011 by CmputrAce
or, How to Really Motivate Your Employees
or, The Best People Manager Doesn’t Even Manage People
They once called me Colonel Kurtz. Mind you, I’ve never seen “Apocalypse Now”, so someone had to explain to me why that should be derogatory. I guess I can see why some people considered me dangerous… I upset the ox cart. I changed the rules and I won. Mind you, I didn’t break the law or even do anything immoral. What I did was my job and that bothered them. I just didn’t do my job their way.
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March 9th, 2011 by CmputrAce
Gateway Model: C140XL with Fingerprint reader
Part No: 2905964R
Model (on PC): TA7
I purchased this Tablet PC in January 2008, and of all the laptops I have ever had, I have to say that this has been the closest to my ideal Portable Do-It-All Information Management Device of all the laptops / notebooks / PDAs I have ever owned, and I have owned a LOT.
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March 9th, 2011 by CmputrAce
Jim Baker We cannot travel through time because it is not a dimension. It is merely the measurement of movement.
Sun 11:39pm · Comment · Like · Hide Feedback (32)
James Baker at 1:40am May 25
I want to slap someone everytime I hear them refer to time as a dimension.
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March 9th, 2011 by CmputrAce
Did you ever wonder who actually invented the “buddy list” that has become so ubiquitous on computers worldwide? I guess it was a couple of years ago while chatting with a “buddy” who I have known online since 1987 that it hit me: I invented the “buddy list”!The documentation for AOTools tells the story about how I got the idea.Quick note: The documentation shown here is for the last version of AOTools that I released in 1992 to work with AOL v.2. I created the first AOTools for AOL v.1 with all the same features. The first version worked on Windows 3.0, and I initially developed it using a beta version of Visual Basic. I was an early beta tester for several Microsoft projects.
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