The last five months have been pretty hard on my old computer, and I was very relieved when I was finally able to upgrade.  The amount of workload I have been placing on my old machine has been close to outstripping its capabilities.  Plus, I have been making some sacrifices to make the tasks fit my computer.  My computer was a company purchase for me, so I was able to set my sights a little differently than if I had purchased this on my own (although, strangely, not much higher.  The iMac I was comparing this to would have only saved me $500).  I thought I’d post a little comparison to help anyone else trying to decide if they want to purchase a Mac Pro or an iMac, like I was.

An iMac is a computer.  A Mac Pro is a workstation. I didn’t notice this one until I actually got the computer home.  But it says it on the box.  An iMac is a “desktop computer.”  A Mac Pro is a workstation.  Know what a workstation is?  It is the part of a mainframe supercomputer that you can interact with.  Basically, if you need horsepower, you need a Mac Pro.  If not, you will get along just fine with an iMac.  I’ll mention more about this as I go along, but one of my main reasons for deciding on a Mac Pro instead of an iMac was I need to be able to run Windows and OS X simultaneously, and there are times when I need them both to be running at full speed.  I’ve been a VMWare Fusion user for almost three years and it works very well.  As long as you don’t mind severe performance degradation on both OS’s.  I use it daily on my Macbook, and if I want Windows to run with any kind of efficiency, I don’t use the OS X side.  When I’m done with Windows, I shut down Windows and go back to Mac for full speed.  I had to do the same when I ran them both at the same time on my old iMac.  It is a compromise I need to make on my laptop, due to the nature of what I use my laptop for, but I was unwilling to settle for that on my main desktop computer.  Now I do not have to.

Do you need to expand your system? The biggest advantage of the iMac is it contains everything you need to get it going within its own shell.  Disk drive?  Check.  Hard Drive?  Check.  Monitor?  Check.  Wireless card?  Check.  Everything the average computer user needs is built right in to the iMac.  The problem?  Suppose you want to go further than what comes built in?  I wanted a second hard drive to act as my Windows machine (I have always used Boot Camp as a way to run windows on my desktop.  I still will on the Mac Pro when I game).  For a second drive, I needed to place an external hard disk on my desk.  I wanted another hard drive to hold my music collection.  I placed another external hard drive on my desk.  I wanted another drive for a weekly full backup of my computer.  I added another hard drive to my desk.  About two years ago, PC games outstripped the capabilities of the graphics card built into the iMac.  Tough luck.  Firewire doubled in speed since I purchased the iMac.  Tough luck, the new connectors are incompatible with the old ones.  The DVD drive on the iMac is wearing out.  Tough luck, add an external to replace it.  The monitor on the iMac is starting to discolor.  Sorry, can’t help you there.

As you can guess, my desk got pretty filled with computer components.  That isn’t the case with the Mac Pro.  I added a second, larger faster hard drive to the Mac Pro, turned that into my main drive and used the Apple-supplied drive as the second disk for Windows.  And I still have two hard drive bays to spare!  Before I got the computer, I purchased an upgrade video card for the machine so I’m now probably good on graphics for at least two years, maybe more.  I can, of course, run games, but not only that, the upgraded card is helping me run two operating systems at full capacity.  And speaking of graphics, I have really weird eyesight.  Not the greatest peripheral vision, but decent.  I found that I can’t see a very large monitor very well.  With the iMac, they have 2 flavors: a 21.5″ monitor and a 27″ monitor.  The 21″ would have been fine, except they wouldn’t allow me to get the computer configuration I wanted.  The 27″ would have, but 27″ is too large a monitor for me to effectively look at.  So I would have had to compromise something somewhere for that to work.  And if I wear out the monitor on this machine, I can just get a new one without spending another couple thousand on a whole new computer.

When I got the Mac Pro this week, the first thing I did was open it up and change around the computer components.  Something you absolutely cannot do on an iMac unless you want to void your warranty.  While I was swapping out components, I had some flashbacks from twenty years ago when I was doing the same stuff to my Apple //e and Apple //GS.  I have fond memories of opening up the shell of my //e (I still have it, by the way) and installing a mouse expansion card (that’s right, you needed to expand the computer back then to make it read a mouse).  Or removing a printer port card and installing another printer port card on the Apple //GS because the old printer died and when you got a new one, you needed a new card to make the computer see it (or you had a parallel printer and replaced it with a serial printer.  That also required a new card.)  That’s what I did this week.  It is a hell of a lot harder to do on the Mac Pro than it was on the Apple //GS, but the memories are still there.  If you don’t mind opening up the guts of your new $3,000+ machine and swapping out components, then a Mac Pro is just fine.  If the thought of touching the guts of such a delicately balanced piece of hardware makes you sick, stick to the iMac.

Is all that power really necessary? I’m not necessarily talking about CPU power.  Even a cheap $500 notebook has more than enough CPU power for most computing tasks.  Here’s what you need to know: if you just browse the web, check your email, look at and transfer photos, share video files, watch internet TV or videos, run a couple of other simple programs, whatever you have is going to be more than adequate for your needs.  Hell, whatever you had back in 2005 would have been more than adequate for your needs even today.  Your CPU has been fast enough for a very long time.  My iPhone is fast enough to run most of what you would use on a computer today.  So why are things so slow?  It isn’t the CPU.  Your CPU spends most of its time waiting.  Your CPU may be at 2.9 Ghz, but your RAM speed might only be 800 Mhz.  Your hard drive might transfer data at only 1 Ghz, your graphics processor (if your computer has one) might only reference its own memory at 1 Ghz.  And don’t get me started on USB.  Anything you have that’s external and connected to the computer, crawls compared to your processor’s speed.  All of these things are running at least half the speed of your computer’s CPU.  So the brains of your computer are actually spending twice as much time (at minimum) waiting for the data it needs to continue working than it is itself using.  This is the real reason your computer is slow most of the time.  With my Mac Pro, I was able to upgrade the components and make the computer’s extremities work a little bit faster.  Faster RAM, faster hard drive, faster RAM in the hard drive, faster graphics speed.  USB unfortunately is what it is, for now.  All this has a measured effect on the things I do with my machine, but most of you won’t need this.

The “pro” kind of says it all. The beauty and the curse of any Apple product is the same: simplicity.  When you buy Apple, you get what they give you.  It is good salesmanship, because despite what everybody thinks about themselves, 95% don’t really know what they want.  So Apple tells them and people are happy.  It is that final 5% of people that really need a Mac Pro.  And the truth of it is, if you know what you are sacrificing by not getting a Mac Pro and you don’t like that sacrifice, then you need a Mac Pro.  Tech journalists often bitch about what a product doesn’t have and why they hate it because it doesn’t have this or that.  They are not the majority of you.  They’re the people who would be happiest with a Mac Pro, because if a Mac Pro doesn’t have it, you can add it.  This is the one Apple product I can think of that has a full range of aftermarket customization options.  If you just need something fast, efficient, and simple, save some money and get an iMac.  Do not feel as if you will be missing something by getting an iMac instead of a Mac Pro.  You won’t.  There’s a very specific set of people who this computer is ideal for, and you already know if you are that person.  Most of you are not.  An iMac will do just as good for you.  I do not regret this purchase.  As I mentioned earlier, the wait times have gotten longer, the more I use my computer (and it was dying anyway, the CPU temp had gotten noticeably higher in recent months).  My work space had gotten cluttered with all the extras I’ve had to add on to the iMac.  And a couple of the components were starting to fail from constant use.  I’m betting this computer, while slightly more expensive, will last me longer than the four years of my iMac.

Stay tuned for the plans I have for how my overworked, geriatric iMac will be spending its retirement years.

Just kidding.

Seriously, I wasn’t against health care reform.  I fully agree that we needed health care reform.  What I did have problems with was the debate about it.  I didn’t agree with everything the democrats said, but they had some valid points.  I also didn’t agree with most of what the republicans gave out as a message, because it was stupid and trivial.  Which is a shame because if you look deep enough, the republicans did have many valid points that were not addressed.  And what still bothers me is such a big law passed via unanimous party assent and dissent, depending on which party you belong to.  I don’t agree 100% with either party on health care, but each party represents a very loud voice within this country and to have one large set of voices ignored by the majority party is very distressing to me, no matter how I feel about what those voices are saying.  Oh yeah, one other thing I didn’t like: at some point last year, Barack Obama pulled a George W. Bush and subtly changed the discussion from health care reform to health insurance company reform.  I really didn’t like that.  The insurance companies certainly aren’t angels, but they aren’t the only part that need fixing.  The companies certainly don’t deserve the amount of vitriol they’ve received in recent months. But reform is here now, so like it or not, unless it is struck down in the courts or repealed after the next election, we’ve got to live with it, warts and all.  I’m reading through the bill as part of my work, so I’ve learned a few things from it.  Here’s some things you might want to know, good and bad.

Disclosure: I am a health insurance broker, so I have more than simply a casual interest in this reform law.  I was never against reform.  I was against the proposed bill in its original form last July when there was wording in it to specifically exclude insurance agents from helping the population make an informed choice.  As the bill stands now, agents and brokers are encouraged to help the population with their health care decisions.  A big difference.

1. The new health insurance is not free.

Frankly, I don’t know how that one slipped into the American consciousness.  Obama never said it was free, no politician republican or democrat ever said it was free.  But everyone seems to think they’re going to be getting free healthcare now.  That is not the case.  You still have to buy the healthcare.  And thanks to this new law, there is a requirement that all Americans except the poorest will have to purchase healthcare or face a fine.  So if you haven’t added health care premiums into your household budget yet, you had better add it now.  Cause you’re gonna be buying it.  No ideas on premiums yet, but I don’t expect them to start off drastically different than they are today for healthy people.

2. Large Employers are required to provide coverage to full time employees.

This one could be interesting.  Employers could provide the coverage to many, but they might also scale down the number of full time employees they have to avoid paying costly premiums.  Also keep in mind the employer is only required to provide the insurance option, they don’t have to subsidize a large chunk of it for you.  Premiums may be out of your price range.

3. Premiums may not be so different from today’s premiums at the start.

Again, this one is going to be a wait and see.  I’ve mentioned this in prior posts, but it bears mentioning again.  Premiums are based on the number of people on a plan vs. the amount in claims that plan is paying out plus a few other minor variables.  Despite what Washington has said in this debate, an insurance company really doesn’t get to keep that much in profit.  They’re already required to spend most of what they make in claims.  Here’s where your premiums will get better: the more people on a plan, the cheaper everyone’s premiums become, because more money goes into the plan.  Here’s where your premiums will get worse: more people will use the plan.  Healthy people will start to use it more now because they can.  And you know those pre-existing conditions everyone was so high-and-mighty about?  Well, up to now excluding people with certain conditions have been a major factor in keeping your current premiums down.  Kiss that good-bye.  In four years, all companies take all comers.  Premiums go up as a result?  Tough shit.  Welcome to the wild world of guaranteed issue medical insurance.  And I don’t want to hear the complaint, “I’m healthy, I never use it, why are my premiums going up?”  Your premiums are going up because you’re paying for the ten other guys who just came on it that need expensive surgery next week.  You get the privilege of paying for it, you lucky guy!  So as I said, the balance between increased claims payout and significantly more people on the plans will be an interesting balance as we move forward.

3. The cheapest plan isn’t going to be the cheapest for very long.

Again, this goes back to experience I have with my line of business, so it is a guess, but also a very educated one.  If a bunch of people buy their health insurance through this new “exchange” based on price, you’re going to be disappointed in a few years.  Insurance companies will start up brand new plans with no claims history on them to brings costs down.  As claims come in, those prices will adjust to regular market prices.  Your best bet is to do some research, find a plan that suits your needs with a solid company.  Find a competent agent to help you with it.  I recommend you check with NAIFA or NAHU to find a competent broker if you do not know one already.

4. Networks are going to be much nicer.

I’m trying to find the exact wording in the new plan, but in the original one the House passed a few months ago, they said that every Exchange health insurance plan must accept all doctors and hospitals that are deemed Medicare providers.  I believe that carried over to the new plan, but I’m having trouble locating the wording.  I’m sure I’ll find it eventually.  That’s big.  That’s fantastic.  That basically eliminates networks and HMO’s throughout the United States.  This is one of the biggest overall positives I’ve seen from this entire bill.

5. Death Panels are complete and utter bullshit.

If you’re one of those people that believed the government is going to have a “death panel,” then please stop reading my blog.  You are a fool.  The government is going to have a “quality assurance panel”  that is going to monitor people with long-term medical needs.  But you know something?  If you are on Medicare, these are already in place.  Has the government euthanized anyone yet?  If you are on a Medicare Advantage plan, every insurance company has the same set of advisors working for them.  If you have major medical, same deal, there’s already administrators working in a hospital for the insurance company to make sure you are getting what you need and the company is not being bilked or overcharged for unnecessary care.  If you are on Medicaid, the state has administrators doing the same thing.  If you have no insurance of any type, that’s about the only way you don’t have an administrator of some type making decisions on your behalf.  If you can pay the bill yourself, you’re in charge.  If you can’t, the hospital is going to do everything in their power to get you well enough to discharge you the hell out of there so they can give your bed to a paying patient.  It is a system that is been in place since the 1980′s.  This is no change.

6. Abortions should have been the least of your worries.

I’m amazed at how the debate misdirected the Americans over to abortions as such an important part of the legislation.  The bill encompasses care in a hospital, doctor’s office, clinic, emergency room, employer coverage, individual coverage, Medicare coverage, Medicaid coverage, payments to doctors, clinics, home health aids, hospice, taxes, bonds, levies, state funds, local funds, federal funds, payroll deductions, IRS penalties, premium caps, medical checkups, preventative care, prescription drugs, injectable drugs, drugs in clinical trial, physical therapy, mental health, nursing home, child care, insurance for children, and a crapload more things that I haven’t mentioned.  Are you telling me that in all that, the only thing that deserves your attention is if the plan will pay for abortion?  Hey, you want to know something?  Right now, there’s a 9 out of 10 chance your current insurance doesn’t cover it.  That doesn’t stop anyone from getting it.  They were never going to cover it in this bill.  It isn’t medically necessary.  Like any good magician, the people trying to push through the bill just turned your attention away from aspects of the debate that might have an actual impact, both positive and negative, on your own personal lives.  Way to go voters.

There’s a lot more in the bill, but it is going to be awhile before I can read through and understand it all.  I’ll write more once I know more.

In the meantime:

Sound advice, always

Like many people, I started out on an electric razor when I was a child and I graduated to a blade.  Over time, I tried different razors, buying into the marketing hype that my real problem is I’m either using the wrong brand of blade, or not enough of them.  I mean, just look at this commercial.  How can you possibly have a shaving problem when there’s a solution like this around:

Or this one:

And then, of course, there’s this one:

Yeah.  Right.  So here’s the thing.  To me, it’s all total, complete, utter bullshit.  I got just as close a shave with a 30 cent disposable Bic shave as I got with a $40 Gillette Fusion razor or my $80 Norelco electric which I take on trips with me.  The results: one or two patches that never seem to get shaved completely and a red, tender face for three days after the shave.   If I shave every other day, I still had to give my face a three day break at some point during the week because my face just can’t take it.  Even with an electric.  And before you ask: I have the same problem with a fresh blade as I do with a used blade in both the electric and the manual razors.  The freshness of the blade ain’t the problem, people.

A couple of years ago, I was at a company convention in Las Vegas when I chanced upon an outlet store by one of the casinos called The Art of Shaving.  I was a little intrigued, so I went in and spoke to them for a few minutes.  The end result: they insisted it wasn’t the razor so much as it was what I was using on my face.  They suggested (here’s the big surprise) I try their pre-shave, shave cream, and after shave.  I thought it was a little on the pricy side, but I decided that if it would end my torture, it was worth a little money.  So I tried it.  And they were right, partially.  Basically it doesn’t matter which regular blade I use, with The Art of Shaving supplies, my face is a little less bloody.  Although if I use a Gillette Fusion along with it, the pain during the shave is also gone, but my face still hurts like hell for several days after the shave and is still very, very red.  I swear, sometimes it looks like I’ve got Scarlet Fever after shaving.  The Art of Shaving products haven’t helped there.  Although a huge kudos for them developing a real after-shave that does soothe and moisturize.  Again, didn’t solve the problem but it bought me a little comfort.

So I go on, for a couple more years using the Gillette Fusion razor and The Art of Shaving supplies; dreading each shave and looking forward to whenever I don’t actually need to beautify myself for the public [insert joke here].  And then about a month ago, I don’t remember how I first came across it, but I came across a support forum for people who shave with a straight razor.  The forum is called StraightRazorPlace.  For those of you who don’t know what a straight razor is, here is a picture:

An example of a straight razor

Yeah.  That thing you saw men shaving with in the old movies.  The thing barbers used to shave with.  That thing that gangsters used to slit their victims throats with.  That’s a straight razor.

So I started reading up on these things.  Apparently, I’m not the only one who has problems with bloody faces, razor burn, pain in the face, and constant redness from the so-called “safety-razors” on the market today.  Reading a little further into this, I learned why razors are what they are today.  Apparently, Mr. Gillette discovered he could make more money if he sold a razor that requires blades that wear down and can be thrown away.  People then have to buy new blades.  He marketed it as fast and cheap to replace (not mentioning the amount of markup he made on each blade).  And you know the American mentality: if it is faster and cheaper, WE WANT IT!  And so the current razor industry was born, along with the problems I mentioned with shaving.

Here’s what I discovered about the old straight razors: One razor, if properly maintained, might be the only razor you ever own – no need to replace it (which is why Mr. Gillette came up with an alternative business model).  You must be careful with it, since it is a single, unaltered, actual razor blade.  You must develop a new skill set to use it or you’ll come out of your shave with a really bad cut.  It takes MUCH LONGER to shave, including multiple passes.  And the blade must be maintained to keep from going dull.  That means you must strop before each shave, and you must hone it yourself or have someone else do it every few months to keep it “shave-ready.”

But I’ve heard this song before, and I wasn’t impressed.  Everyone says their system will end my suffering and I’ll finally have a good shave.  I didn’t believe this was any better.  But, it couldn’t be worse, so I decided to study and try it out.  Normally, a straight razor costs well over $100.  I didn’t feel like blowing $100 on a razor that might not solve any of my shaving problems, so I did a little research and found an alternative.  The founder of the Straightrazorplace forums own his own shaving supply store and sells straight razors that takes disposable blades.  By the way, when I say disposable blades, I am referring to a disposable blade that you can purchase in any hardware store.  His site is called Straight Razor Designs.  I haven’t been there yet, but he’s only about 50 miles from where I live.  It really is a small world!  The “trial” razor I got is called the Shavette by Dovo.  I spent about 2 weeks studying technique before I worked up the courage to scrape a razor blade against my face.

But I finally did it.  And you know something: it actually worked.  Yes, I cut myself (including a couple that I think were rather deep) and I started off with a  bloody mess for a face after the first few shaves.  But on the other hand: my neck, which has always been red and pockmarked from razor burn is no longer red.  It cleared up.  My chin, which is also not only red but constantly shedding dead skin is also clearing up, or at least it’s better than it was.  My face hurts like hell for a couple hours after the shave but then no longer hurts.  And–this is the best part–as my facial hair grows back, it is coming back lighter and softer.  By the end of the second day after a shave, I don’t need to shave!  I could actually wait until day three.  Because the results are so much better, I actually enjoy shaving for the first time in my life.  After I finish up these disposable razor blades I got, I’ll actually look to invest in a real straight razor and a strop.

As I said, there’s still some pain, but the amount of blood (except for a couple deep cuts during my learning period) is actually no worse for me than I have with a safety razor.  To me, after I shave, I always look like I went three rounds wrestling a cat.  This is no different.  And I’m still learning how to give myself something more consistent than a half-assed shave, but the skills are coming.

So, if you’re a disgruntled shaver like me, check out the Straightrazorplace forums.  And then, if you’re looking for some supplies, check out the forum founder’s shop: Straight Razor Designs.  If you want some very good (albeit expensive) shaving cream, pre-shave oil, and after shave that won’t burn like your balls are on fire, check out The Art of Shaving after shave balm.

If you’re curious about the proper technique for straight razor shaving, here’s a 2-part video of a good demonstration.  I hope your experiences with it are as good as mine have been.  Sometimes, the older methods are better.  In this case, technology has actually made my life worse.  I didn’t know it until I tried an older method.  This might be your solution too.

Part One:

Part Two:

About two years ago, when Apple introduced the original iPhone 3G and iPhone OS 2.0, they included something new: apps.  For those of you who don’t know what an “app” is, (HELLO PEOPLE OF PLANET NEPTUNE!!) an “app” is short for “application” and it is basically a small program which you can use to take advantage of the phone’s other computing capabilities.  When Apple introduced apps, they also introduced a gateway to them through their iTunes software called the App Store.  Over the past two years, Apple and their app store have been wildly successful, selling approximately two billion apps and hosting over one hundred twenty five thousand different apps.  Many are free, but many more are for sale.  Whenever Apple introduces a new product or updates to their existing hardware lineup, they boast about the success and number of applications on the app store, and how it is a virtual goldmine for some of the programmers who have built apps. And Apple isn’t kidding, either.  Open up your iTunes software and go to the app store.  Get past the main page and take a look at how many apps you have to choose from.  Rather impressive, isn’t it?  People wouldn’t keep writing them if they weren’t making money off of it.

Here’s the thing: most of them are crap.  I don’t mean crappy, I mean crap.  They’re shit.  Poopie.  Ka-Ka.  Useless.  Idiotic.  In plain English, “A-WASTE-OF-MONEY.”

Now I admit that I’m actually not in the majority.  My iPhone is a business tool, not a personal cell phone.  When I’m not working, the phone mostly sits and charges.  The only time I really use it when I’m not working is to take work phone calls.  Most people buy the iPhone as a personal cell phone (between the phone and the service, it is a very expensive personal cell phone.  I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t need something like it for business reasons).  And the apps tend to lean more towards the personal use side of iPhoning (a new word?) instead of business use.

I have 42 apps on my iPhone right now.  Many of them are news readers, one is a business card transcriber.  A couple of coupon aggregators (which I do use occasionally for personal use), prescription drug finders which I use in my work, Skype, a price checker, and an ereader.  Most every app I have on there is free.  I’ve purchased three apps only, with the most expensive app being a $15.99 business card scanner.  But everything else was free.  I’ve pulled off over a dozen other applications because they were all crap.  Either poorly written or totally useless, including an app to write or monitor this very blog.  And there’s even more apps than that which I’ve browsed but never grabbed because I either thought it was crap, or I thought it should be free and passed on it.  There was a joke last year, when Apple said they had over 80,000 apps, the response to that was usually, “and how many of them make farting noises.”  That’s the kind of app that gets sprinkled around the few gems of the store.

But Apple, for all its hype, at least innovates.  If they aren’t the first to market with something, they’re the first to market with something usable by the average person.  And the app store is no different.  Now that Apple has shown other large companies how to create and sell apps, everyone wants to have an app store of their own.  I’m going to write a post one day about the lack of innovation and how so many companies want to be a “killer” of some competitor’s product and they are doomed to fail.  Anyway, have you noticed how there are app stores popping up all over the place now?  Palm has an app store for the Pre.  Android cell phones have an app store.  For god’s sake, I had to buy a new printer a couple of months ago (don’t get me started on that one) and HP was advertising there’s now an app store for printers!  Yes, you read that right: you can now get apps for your printer.  Hey HP, I’ve got an app for you: make your printers print stuff.  How’s that?  Think I can sell it on your app store for $9.99?

I think I saw a refrigerator advertising it is net enabled and now has the ability to download apps.  This deserves no comment from me.

Netbooks are also coming out with an app store.  A netbook is basically a very small, underpowered laptop which is usually very inexpensive.  But it is a freaking computer!  And they’re going to add an app store for your computer.  They already have an app store: it is called the internet!  Go to download.com, Google in what you want and you’ll find it.  What the hell is an app store for your computer all about?

And finally, even my beloved Kindle is getting into the loser’s game of Apple-see, Monkey-do.  Last week, Amazon announced they’re putting out a software developers kit so people can create their own apps for the Kindle.  Why?  Yes, Apple came out with a tablet this week that reads books.  Big deal, it won’t be as good an experience as it is on the Kindle.  Yeah, tech people are saying how great it will be.  But just as Amazon has a second rate music download store to compete with Apple’s iTunes, Apple will have a second rate ebook store to compete with Amazon’s Kindle store.  The LCD on the new iPad won’t compare with eink.  You think you want a color screen for reading books?  Why?  How many paper books do you read right now that has color in it?  I’ve got hundreds in my house and very few have color (although I think the iPad might be the thing we’ve been looking for to read comic books and graphic novels).  What the hell are people going to try and get their Kindles to do?  I want my Kindle to do one thing: display a book I can read without turning my eyes bloodshot.  And do it in such a way that my battery doesn’t need charging by the end of the day.  They don’t need an app for their device!

I’ll bet you within a year, people will be laughing at the amount of crap and uselessness in all these app stores, including Apple’s.  There’s just too much junk there.

The reason Apple is where it is today is because they innovate.  The reason Amazon excels at a few things and is quite mediocre at others is they innovated at what they’re good at.  A consumer can smell quality vs. a quick grab for money a mile away.  It is time companies stop trying to rip off other people’s ideas and start trying to either come up with their own or improve on existing ideas and make them truly better.  When history looks back on this period, I think they’ll be laughing at us for our “app store craze.”  And they’ll be right.  One company got it right (albeit there’s a lot of junk surrounding the true genius in there), everyone else is just freaking embarrassing.

I’m not going to do a book review on Inspire! because I don’t understand enough of it.  However, that book and a movie I just saw, Office Space, got me thinking about something that seems to be changing in the workplace.  The relationship between what is work and what is personal time.  Where does work end?  Where does your home life end?  These questions have changed over the past ten years as computers and telecommuting have become more commonplace.

The history of working for a large corporation used to be simple: work your 40 hours, go home, wash, rinse, repeat.  In the 1980′s, as the “global economy” became more commonplace and competition became fiercer, people started bringing their work home with them, and the reason for that was because they not only had more work, but these people’s managers demanded the work get accomplished faster.  So work began invading the home life.  However, companies didn’t change as the families did.  When you were at work, you could bring some of your family life there.  So as a result, people’s personal lives fell into disarray while their work life got better.

Thanks to the computer, things are changing.  Families are becoming more connected during work hours and companies are starting to change their response to it.  Stories life this one are becoming a thing of the past.  Companies are starting to let workers have some family time during their work hours if they are asking their workers to have some work time during family hours.

Again, I have no point here, this is just what’s been on my mind because of reading that book by Lance Secretan.  The basic premise, as I understand it, is to define an inspirational leader.  There were some quotes in the book that got me thinking about the short-sightedness of people I have known and the demands they’ve made of people.  The “sacrifices for the job” they’ve asked, yet never giving an inch if you cared about personal development.  The book got me thinking about all the “leaders” I’ve been around in the past, and how they’ve sacrificed long term gains for short term successes, and how many of them no longer hold the positions they once did.  They are either in another job, or worse, in the same job, but the company which they work for never became anything more than a second-tier organization rather than the great one they aspired to be.  These “leaders” saw no further than the current task, they had no power beyond that which was given to them, and they had no loyalty from those around them.  These are the lessons which I hope to learn from and these people are my role models with which I will try to not live my life.

• “I’ve been good to this country all these years, they are now good to me.”
• “Social Security is great!  Medicare is a bargain.”
• “I don’t get it.  I work my whole life and pay my taxes and now I am retired and have to pay some more.”
• “Medicare is useless.”
• “What the government gives you with one hand, they take from the other.”
• “It’s great when they give us stuff like social security benefits, it just adds to my retirement program.”

Notice there are positive and negative comments about the American government?  That’s what I see all the time.  And you can tell after just a few minutes with these people exactly which way they are going to respond.  People with a nice house and a nice retirement think America has been good to them.  People with crappy, smelly houses that are living just on social security think America sucks.  Why is that?  I believe a lot of people are misinterpreting the “American Dream.”

The way the American Dream was originally taught to me was, “work hard, get a good job, and you will prosper.”  As I got older and started reading up more on U.S. history, not the crap you are required to read in public school, but the actual scholarly works and first person accounts of American history that is shamefully ignored by history teachers.  I think I figured out what the American Dream truly is.  “Every American, no matter how they were born, no matter what background they come from, no matter who their family is, has the same opportunity as anyone else to succeed and prosper in life.”

OK, conspiracy theorists, I’ll pause for a moment while you think to yourself the usual excuse for how only the “old boy network” or only the “people who came in on the Mayflower” can succeed and how these forces are keeping you down.

[pause]

Get that all out of your system?  Good.

How do I know a lot of you were thinking that?  Because that is how I was brought up to believe as well.  But as I grew up and moved away from home and started experiencing life for myself, I started seeing things a little differently.  Basically, life is hard, success is hard.  Deal with it.  If you are looking over your shoulder every time you make a move to see if somebody is going to slap you down, then yeah, someone is going to slap you down.  But if you are trying to succeed, take a few risks here and there, you’d be amazed what you can accomplish.  That’s what I am finding out now.  Starting a business from scratch with a partner, I find that we are filling a market demand that others are not and two years later we are starting to see the first small light of success.  Does that mean there isn’t competition?  Hell, no.  This is insurance.  I turn my back and there’s competition left and right.  But my partner and I have hit upon a formula for the specific market we are working in and it is working well thus far.

To me, that is the American Dream.  So where does the American Dream fall down for so many people?  Let’s see.  Part of the dream is to work hard.  Americans work hard.  Hell, if I am not mistaken, we are the hardest working, lowest paid culture on the planet.  So we all work hard.  I recognize most people get paid a specific amount of money each month.  I don’t.  I’m a business owner who makes money off the sales his business makes.  You know what I’ve found?  I’m at a disadvantage.  So why am I more optimistic than people who have had thirty plus years of salaries coming to them?  Because I also see where people have been spending their money.  You get a salary?  Great!  You also have a new car and get a new one every two or three years.  You take wild and exotic vacations.  You paid off your house early, exchanging a tax deduction on interest paid and money that could be making money in an investment account so the bank wouldn’t own your mortgage any more.  You remodel your house every five years.  You have no investments outside of your 401(k).

Starting to see what I’m seeing?  You made some decent money in your working lifetime.  Probably over one million dollars accumulated over thirty years.  But what have you done with it?  It isn’t government that has kept you down, it isn’t some sort of conspiracy, it is your own habits.  The people that I’ve seen that are more than happy with being in America learned this early on.  And I have seen people make six figure annual salaries that are miserable.  Because if you make $100,000 annually, to be miserable all you have to do is spend $100,001 annually.  Social Security is not meant to be your sole source of support.  So you had better have some other means of saving.  “Entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare?”  They are not American traditions.  Those are socialist programs.  We are a capitalist society.  That means you keep what you make.  That’s all.  We varied it slightly to add Social Security and Medicare, but it isn’t true to our American roots.

In other countries, the family you are born into dictates the job you will have in your lifetime.  Some babies are born in a prison cell and will be there their whole life because of crimes committed by their parents.  Women are not allowed to work outside of the home in MANY countries around the world.  Skin color still precludes you from advancing in other places.  None of that crap matters in America.  You have the same chance as everyone else has here.  And that, is the American Dream.

What got me thinking about this post is an article I was forwarded from the weekly newsletter of the Napoleon Hill Foundation.  I’ve mentioned before that I love reading and following the works of Napoleon Hill.  His teachings really did start me on important changes in my life.  I strongly urge you to get some of the Books by Napoleon Hill, and visit his foundation’s website.  While you are there, subscribe to their weekly newsletter.  What follows is an article Napoleon Hill wrote for his magazine when he was editor back in 1956.

Stop Making Failures of Your Children
by Napoleon Hill

Do you realize that your child’s success or failure depends on you? The schooling and the religious training your children receive will play an important part in their lives, of course, but the influence they will pick up from living close to you can be and should be one that puts them on the success beam.

There are three important principles you can teach your children which will go a long way toward bringing them success and happiness throughout their lives. The first of these is Definiteness of Purpose. This habit should start when the child is very young so that it will become a fixed part of his character.

Not too long ago I was visiting friends whose little boy was playing with tinker toys. He was trying to build a helter-skelter design that soon crumbled to the floor. He began to cry when his understanding mother came to his rescue and asked him what he wanted to build.

“I dunno,” he sobbed, “just something that will stand up.”

“Before you start building,” his mother counseled, “you must know what you want, and you must have a plan to go by. Now, let’s see what you’d like to make.”

After the mother had mentioned several things that could be made from the tinker toys, the youngster decided upon a small house and set to work with great enthusiasm to build it.

“This will take more time and work,” cautioned the boy’s father. “but when you are finished it will stand up, and you will be very proud of what you have done.”

As I was getting ready to leave, the boy jubilantly grabbed me by the hand and asked me to come and look at his house “that wouldn’t fall down.”

“This is so much better than putting something together every which way,” he exclaimed triumphantly.

On my way out to my car, the boy’s father accompanied me. He was an executive in a large national chain store organization, who began as a stock clerk in one of the smaller stores, less than ten years previously. He advanced himself to a vice-presidency by following the habit of definiteness of purpose. “You understand now,” he exclaimed with pride, “why we are leaving no stone unturned in seeing that our boy grows up with a full appreciation of the value of knowing what he wants.”

All though your child’s “when I grow up” years of wanting to be a railroad engineer, a space cadet, or a movie star, inspire in him the faith that he can be a success in whatever he chooses, but tactfully influence him to make a definite decision to work toward some specific definite major purpose in life.

The second success principle you should teach your children is the Habit of Going the Extra Mile — the rendering of useful service beyond the scope of duty. This is a “must” habit without which no one has ever been known to rise to great heights of success in any undertaking. In addition to creating favorable opportunities financially for those who follow this principle, it adds great strength to character and gives on the ability to make friends easily.

Joe and Pete were next-door neighbor sons of unskilled laborers. Neither of their parents was well schooled, but Joe’s folks were wise enough to recognize the value of the habit of Going the Extra Mile, and they taught this to him from early childhood.

Pete’s parents, on the other hand, impressed on him the idea of taking everything he could get without lifting a finger, and he lost no time in making this idea his own.

While his son was growing up, Joe’s father was able to promote himself to a position as foreman, then department manager at his plant by following the habit of rendering more service and better service than he was actually paid for. He instilled this habit in his son.

Throughout grade school and high school Joe was a giving person — sharing generously his time in extra-curricular activities and his possessions. He was constantly going out of his way to make himself liked by both his teachers and his schoolmates. Moreover, his habit of thus Going the Extra Mile gave him great pleasure for he did it in a most pleasing mental attitude.

Meanwhile Pete did as little work as he possibly could to get by. Results, poor grades in school, difficulties with the teachers and his schoolmates, and no participation in athletics because, as he remarked, “There’s no pay in it.” Where did he learn this attitude? From his father who constantly griped about “slave drivers” down at the plant, in the school system, and about everywhere else.

Joe got a scholarship which paid his way through a fine college because of the excellent record he made in high school, and he went on to win high honors in college by continuing to follow the habit of Going the Extra Mile. He never asked, “What do I get out of this?” but, “What can I contribute to help someone out?”

Pete scornfully referred to Joe as “that eager beaver who tries to kill himself doing something for somebody.” But the “eager beaver” did all right for himself. As the result of his college record, he wound up with the offer of a job with a wonderful company right after graduation. He still has the habit of Going the Extra Mile. It has brought him two promotions with increased pay over a number of other young men who began work with the same company when he started. The other young men had as much education was Joe, and they had as much intelligence.

What about Pete? He got a menial job right after he left high school. He moans constantly about Joe’s getting all the breaks. To this day he doesn’t see that Joe promoted himself into the better things of life by GIVING before trying to GET and thereby starting the great law of increasing returns to move in his favor. And Pete’s parents haven’t the slightest ideas that they failed in preparing him for success in life.

The third success principle you should teach your child is the habit of a positive mental attitude. The habit of thinking in terms of things he can do and not in terms of things he cannot do. Henry Ford once said that what he needed most in his business organization were more men who didn’t know anything about the words “it cannot be done.”

Two teen-age girl friends decided to try out for the freshman class play together.

When Nancy told her parents about it, they were very enthusiastic and encouraged her to go right ahead with it.

However, when Joanne told her folks, all she got was negative comments – “Why do you want to waste your time with that? Besides, your voice is too squeaky. And you’ll spend too much time and catch cold in that chilly auditorium. You’ll never learn all those lines, they you’ll make a mistake and be embarrassed forever.”

The poor girl had failed even before she started. Failed because her own parents had sold her a negative “no-can-do” mental attitude.

Nancy tried out for the play. She didn’t get a part, but her positive-minded parents immediately helped her find the seed of an equivalent benefit in her temporary defeat. “Why, this will allow you to spend more time on your sewing for your 4H contest,” soothed her mother. Nancy went on to win second place in the 4H contest, and she grew up to be a poised, serene wife and mother who now has two beautiful children of her own to whom she is teaching the habit of a positive mental attitude.

Joanne didn’t get a part in the play either – but she didn’t even try. Once she did take courage enough to overcome her parents’ wails of doom and try out for the swimming team. When she didn’t make the team all she got from her parents was “I told you so.” Joanne today is a self-centered, withdrawn woman who spends her time and money trying all sorts of medicines to relieve her “aches and pains.” Her negative mental attitude has made of her a confirmed hypochondriac.

If parents think and talk in terms of sickness and poverty and failure, they will pass these states of mind on to their children who, in turn will use them as stumbling blocks to failure throughout life. Think, act and speak in terms of health, affluence, achievement — and give your children steppingstones to success.

Source: Success Unlimited. November 1956, Vol. III, No. XI. Pgs. 36-40.

I’ve spent a number of blog posts defending corporations, and rightly so.  I think large corporations aren’t given a fair shake.  Many of them try to do the right thing, but some of these companies are so large that they make themselves an easy, and in some cases, irresistible target.  A lot of times a company does wrong, it is simply a misstep, or as can often be, a misunderstanding between the consumer and the company.  A lot of this has to do with the consumer not doing their due diligence before engaging in a purchase of a product.  As an example: the insurance industry takes a lot of flak due to the ignorance of the consumer.

However, I don’t want people to think I’m only siding with the corporations.  I’d like to dedicate this blog post to the consumer, and point out some things that corporations get wrong.  The idea for this post came to me while I was reading one of the autobiographies of Henry Ford: Today and Tomorrow.  A lot of what made Ford and the auto industry great, at least during its initial years, was its ability to pay high wages and reduce prices for the consumer.  Ford emphasized repeatedly in his book that when times were getting tough and the industry was about to experience a downturn, they would raise the minimum wage of their workers and cut the prices of their vehicles.  This led to better workmanship on the product and more products being sold.  A magic formula for success in any industry even today.  However, many companies have gotten out of this habit.  Today, when business is going bad, a lot of companies either cut wages or cut jobs, causing a decline in the quality of a company’s goods and services.  Or worse yet, the company starts outsourcing its manufacturing.  Ford took this mentality a step beyond the normal thinking.  He hypothesized that his workers were his first, best customers.  And that an unemployed worker is not a customer.  And an underpaid worker is an unemployed customer, because they cannot afford to purchase goods and services.  A well-paid worker is a customer for everybody.  When workers have money, they buy, that money goes back into the corporations, and the companies can profit and pay more workers higher wages.  Ford wrote this in 1926 and I dare anyone to tell me this doesn’t hold true today.  A lot of the ill will we feel towards corporations today has to do with corporations creating too many non-customers or unemployed customers.  Where did this fall down: spend a few minutes and go to this site.  It’s a site of nothing but mission statements.  Take a look at the company mission statements.  You’ll find a number of manufacturing companies whose sole business, according to their mission statement, is to maximize shareholder value and increase the price of their company’s shares.  No mention of the consumer, no mention of the worker, no mention of the company culture.  These are corporations that are just asking, begging, to go out of business.  And I think that is where companies started going wrong.  When the emphasis started getting placed on Wall Street and the shareholders rather than the consumer and the worker, then big business started to lose the trust of the masses.  Not to say that’s the way it is with every company.  In fact, if you look at a lot of those mission statements, you’ll see a number of them place the customer in the center of their culture.  Those of the companies that are built to last and will survive virtually any economic downturn.  And I believe that the shareholders would be satisfied with that approach in the long run as well.  Shareholders know the driving force of a stock price is the quality of the business, and if companies would remember that’s where the money comes from, then everybody would win.

Another way big business fails us is in customer service.  This is kind of a personal issue for me, because I own a business that is built, primarily on the quality of the service I provide.  We all know the much-deserved cliché of a company outsourcing its customer service call center to India, where you speak with someone named “Tyrone,” but whose real name is “Tyronikeshasomaduvarickawickistan.”  Unfortunately, that particular joke came about because it is true, and while it might mean a company is saving some money by not paying American workers to handle American complaints, these companies are losing American business if word gets around their customer service reps are impossible to understand.  Another issue, and this is much more of an issue with older individuals, is when you try to call up a company and you get an automated telephone response system.  This makes the calls impersonal and gives the customer the impression that the company does not care about the customer.  Should anyone get into a situation where you must call one of these automated response lines, there is a fantastic site called gethuman.com which will instruct you how to bypass the machine and get straight to a person.  Bookmark that site and keep it handy for when that happens.

Remember that as consumers in the United States, we are the most powerful entities in existence, as far as companies are concerned.  Not the government, us.  In many cases, companies WILL change without government interference, but we as consumers must tell them how we feel with our wallets.  Government interference isn’t always necessary, although there are exceptions.  Writing letters, complaining to the person that answers the phone, that might help a little, but if you want to really get results, change brands.  I do a LOT of my shopping on the internet now.  Sometimes the prices are lower, sometimes they aren’t.  Why do I shop so much online?  Because I get horrible service from many of the shops in my home town.  I’ve been lied to, overcharged, ignored, and even pandered to by employees of companies locally.  And there was even one shop where they outright said they didn’t want to work on something of mine!  Imagine that: a business that doesn’t want my business!  I travel 50 miles sometimes just to do shopping because I know I can get what I need and get it backed with good service.  I get my car repaired at the dealer and pay for it.  Why?  I know the service is good.  I buy clothes at the Men’s Wearhouse because if there’s something I need, I know the people there will go out of their way to find it.  If they don’t have it, they’ll go the extra mile and order it for me.  I’ll have it in a week.  I buy a lot of stuff from Amazon because I know the price is fair and I can return it if it’s broken within a reasonable timeframe.  This is how I vote.  I need things, like everybody else.  And this is how I thank a company for providing me with the service I demand.  For me, just being local and conveniently located is not enough.  That’s why I don’t have too many customer service problems.

If you are looking to find out which companies actually care about customer service, I suggest checking out a site called getsatisfaction.com.  It is a bunch of companies that have actual customer service representatives that monitor the site.  If you were not able to get a customer service problem handled, post to that site and a company rep will contact you about the problem.  You can tell which companies are trying to improve their customer service experience by seeing which of them have their own area on that site.  Certainly not every company is there, but the ones that are make it known that they are available to their customers.  Another venue that wound up being surprising for me, was Twitter.  My internet kept on going out, so I tweeted about it and mentioned the company’s name.  In about six hours, my ISP provider called me and said a tech would be out the next day to look into the problem.  Considering I’d made three calls to tech support about it and wasn’t able to get anyone to do anything, my public tweet solved the problem.  As far as I’m concerned, that’s service!  The companies that don’t care, will get a reputation for not caring, and we, as consumers, will stop buying their wares.  Then, and only then, will things change and the service we demand will return.

In the meantime, happy Thanksgiving, and have a good holiday — denomination of your choice.

#4: Out of This World: Remember when I said “memorable?”  Well, this is the opening to a story from a video game from 1992 and on my beloved Apple IIGS!  Yes, I still remember it.  In fact, I seem to recall I wanted to get this game because of the opening cut scene.  I remember thinking it is the most amazing opening to a video game I’ve ever seen.  My, how things have improved since then.

#3: Starlancer:   I saw this game for the first time as it was playing on the TV of a Game Crazy.  I remember thinking “wow!  What a great movie.  This would make a great video game!”  While the graphics look somewhat dated today, I still think it would make a great video game.  Little did I know when I was first watching it that the Starlancer game was created by Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts. The reason I liked it, is he totally ripped himself off in this game.  When I saw this, it was 4 years after the game came out.  I found a copy of the game used on PC and found it again on the Dreamcast (also long gone by the time I saw it the opening).  I’m a little late to the party, but look at all the money I saved because of it!  Still would make a great movie, don’t you think?

#2: Halo 2:  I’m one of those rare specimens that likes playing Halo for the single player campaign.  I don’t really care for multiplayer.  Halo has a very good story.  While Halo 3 has a much better playable portion of the game, I happen to think the story in Halo 2 is much better.  I recently replayed Halo 3, and there’s a lot of gaps in logic there.  I had trouble following it.  The game was so good, I didn’t care.  But this is about story.  Here’s the opening to Halo 2.

#1: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: As I said, I’m replaying the entire series as well as playing MGS4 for the first time.  I haven’t decided if I like #4 more than #3.  But I’m sure I like the overall experience of #3 better to this point.  There are definite advantages to #4 that #3 didn’t have, but #3: Snake Eater presented to me the best overall package that I enjoy playing and replaying over and over again.  The opening of the game (see below) is one of the best openings ever, the game play is terrific, the ending chase sequence — they could make an entire game out of it!  And the ending is so emotional it brings a tear to my eyes every time.  Best story game ever!

As I finished MGS2 last week, I realized that the final soliloquy from Snake sums up very well for me my own feelings about children.  I am 33, married, and have no kids.  There is no biological reason for this.  My wife and I simply choose not to have any.  There are many things in my life I feel I have to live for, and while I do not begrudge anyone who lives solely for their children, I have believed for a very long time that I have other things to live for.

So in the future, should someone ask me why I do not have children, I am going to direct them to this blog post, which sums up my feelings and puts said feelings into words exactly how I wish I could express them.  You can see the speech delivered quite masterfully by Snake voice actor David Hayter.  Or if the link ever gets taken down, I will also include the text of the speech below the video.

Transcription:

Life isn’t just about passing on your genes. We can leave behind much more than just DNA. Through speech, music, literature and movies… what we’ve seen, heard, felt …anger, joy and sorrow… these are the things I will pass on. That’s what I live for.

We need to pass the torch, and let our children read our messy and sad history by its light. We have all the magic of the digital age to do that with. The human race will probably come to an end some time, and new species may rule over this planet. Earth may not be forever, but we still have the responsibility to leave what traces of life we can. Building the future and keeping the past alive are one and the same thing.