Computer Aces

On Being a Manager

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.

Gateway Tablet PC C140XL – A Review AFTER two years

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.

The Non-Dimensionality of Time – My Contribution to Geek Pride Day

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.

The Origin of the Buddy List

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.

Celebrating My Mentors – Tim O’Gorman

When it comes to relationships, I think one thing that people notice most about me is that I tend to keep my cool. I don’t “blow up” when others would. Not bad for a guy who had always been a hothead – I got into a LOT of fights while growing up. I always had problems with being too emotional and unable to hide my feelings.

From about 1987 through 1993 I worked as a contract software developer for a major petroleum exploration company. The head of the group I worked with was Tim O’Gorman. What stuck out to me about him was that he was soft-spoken.

Celebrating My Mentors – Troxel Ballou

How I got to writing this….

I was talking to a friend and joking. I made a pretty bad pun and said, “It’s a joke, oui (wee)?” I say that to my kids when they tell a lamer, holding my hand up with my index finger close to my thumb in the gesture we know to mean “little”. It’s a double-entendre – a sentence or phrase with two meanings. The first is simply, “It’s a joke, yes? (oui)”, and the second is, “It’s a really wee (small) joke – not very funny at that.”