b.cognosco

A quest to examine, inquire, and learn.

Home · Consulting · Presentations · Essays · MapInfo · Archives · About

Recently

Friday, September 27, 2002

Wire the 'Hood

Here is everything you need to become a wireless ISP for your neighborhood. [ Source:  John Robb's Radio Weblog]

Shorter Hard Drive Warranties

News.Com: `"Changing the warranty was something all the manufacturers wanted to do, but no one wanted to be first, Rutledge said. "We were all basically playing chicken to see who went first," Rutledge said. "Maxtor took a leadership position...and we're supporting it."' [ Source:  lawrence's notebook]

Market Gap Analysis

The dirty little secret of content management. Dylan Tweney's latest Business 2.0 column advises businesses to steer carefully between the six-figure CMS overkill solutions that thrived during the dotcom boom and the other end of the spectrum, reinventing the CMS wheel yourself in-house.

I've been doing content management-related consulting for the last five years and there's a big hole in the middle of the market for CMS framework software that will handle 80% of the needs of most clients. There's no need, most of the time, to spend half a million dollars implementing a universal document management, record-keeping type system.

I wonder how many businesses could manage their web and intranet content just fine with affordable tools such as powerful blog systems (for example, pMachine or Movable Type) or more full-featured but still affordable-bordering-on-free CMS tools (for example, Manila and PostNuke). [ Source:  Radio Free Blogistan]

Classical Education at Home

Edumacation. It's a bad thing when you come back from the feel-good Meet the Teachers night at the local, progressive public school and need a drink. After hearing what's in store for our 11 year old in sixth grade, Ann and I were shaken, angry and depressed.

[...] The culprits here are easy to identify since the staff of our local school is dedicated, loving, smart and thoughtful: It's raining stupidity from above. "Test and blame" is the message coming from the feds, the commonwealth and even the town.

Home schooling anyone? [ Source:  JOHO the Blog]

So we did home school. And there are more and more people doing just that, because of the quality of education the public schools provide. One problem in home schooling is the deep-rooted streak of Christian fundamentalism -- all the curriculum and materials are geared toward educating the child more about Christianity than anything else. If you hold other beliefs, are home schooling for non-religious reasons, or if you just want a broader view, it can be difficult to find suitable materials.

Assembling your own curriculum can be frustrating, and added to the stress of running a home school you get some highly stressed home school parents. So most choose to go with a prepared curriculum. But I found a fantastic book for this problem some years ago.

The Well-Trained Mind, by Jessie Wise and her daughter Susan, provides instruction on how to build a curriculum. But more importantly, it helps you understand how and why a curriculum should be structured in a certain way, and provides a framework around which a solid, classical education can be built.

When I first read this book I was a little sad that I was never taught this way and only now, in my 40s, am learning much of what I should have known years ago. But I got over that and soon was reveling in just how good a K-12 education could be. In the time since we stopped home schooling our kids I've loaned this book to several friends considering home schooling. All have found it an enlightening guide to using home schooling to teach their children how to "love more of the world," -- not less.

I'm insured -- the old fashioned way

I tried eHealthinsurance.com but, like Scott Walker's experience, I found them less than helpful. Their forms are a Mobius loop, their customer service isn't, and when you finally get through all the hoops you find their relationship with the insurers isn't all that great.

Instead, I called my local independent insurance agent -- the people who carry my house and car insurance. They pointed me to a local representative from GE Financial services. This guy specializes in individual health care policies.

He talked me through it over the phone, sent me a couple of different options to review, and told me how to fill out the forms. He made it pretty easy. Where the eHealthinsurance.com approach took Scott 10 weeks, my application to BlueCross BlueShield of Georgia was approved in 10 days! What a deal. And I didn't pay any more than the price posted on eHealthinsurance.com.

The upshot of this is that, as Doc Searls points out, sometimes the online service brokers just aren't what we think they are, and working with real humans in the traditional way is all you need.

Comment-ary

But I miss them. I don't want all my blog entries to be conversations, but a little feedback is a good thing and forcing people to send e-mail is a hindrance. So I've been looking at alternatives. I know there have been some improvements in the notification structure (I think you can get an RSS feed off your Radio comments now,) but I still want more control.

I'm investigating Weblogger.com as a possible host for my personal domain. I've started trying out one of their free sites and if I can figure out how to get Radio to talk to that Manila server correctly, and manage comments the way I want, then I'll put them back on.

If that doesn't work out, I'll be looking into one of the 3rd-party services like YACCS. In any case, I'm working on getting my comment-ary back.

Digital Hollywood Has Game

DVD Makers Starting to Play Games. You've dropped your VCR player and soon you can forget your PC. At least, that's what the DVD industry is planning on. Michael Stroud reports from Digital Hollywood in Beverly Hills.

[...] Consumer electronics companies have yet to announce they're making DVD players incorporating the technology. If the players end up being too expensive, consumers won't buy them.

And most importantly, studios and consumer electronics companies will need to create a buzz about the features they're adding, or consumers won't care. Even with millions of PCs capable of playing enhanced DVDs now on the market, Wuthrich noted, "the biggest issue is that people don't know it's there."

[ Source:  Wired News]

Int'l Fujitsu Hard Drive Fiasco

PCA attacks 'shabby' handling of Great Fujitsu HDD fiasco. We publish Open Letter from trade association

[...] from the reports we have received from three continents we can conclude, with a reasonable degree of confidence that the MPG3xxx series drives may well have a failure rate in excess of 20% pa (40% within two years of install). Indeed some of our correspondents would say this is a conservative estimate. [...]

[...] “I am a Tech for a School District in BC Canada. We purchased a brand new lab of Hewitt Rand machines about a year ago. They all came with the MPG3204AT 20 GIG Fujitsu Harddrives.As Hewitt Rand has gone out of business, we have been having to deal with Fujitsu Canada directly.

So Far, out of 30 machines, we have had 26 fail with the "no harddrive" lack of detection by the system. That is 86% and climbing every day. These machines stay running all the time. They were fine for about eight months and then they started to fail at a rate of 2 - 3 per week. [...] [ Source:  The Register]

Practical Goodness -- Process Improvement and Documentation

GREAT APPROACHES  FOR SMALL BUSINESSES AND CONSTRAINED BUDGETS

Process on a Shoestrong. The Process Group October Newsletter covers shoestring process improvement and practical project and process documentation. Process improvement is one of the first to go when making cuts. If it's cut,... [meryl's notes] via [ Source:  Rodent Regatta]

Contact

       

This Page was last updated: 11/28/2002; 6:11:20 PM
Copyright © 2002 Terry W. Frazier