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Site redesign

2 years ago
by reggie in

Hey yall.  Spent some time tonight working on a new site design.  Yeah, I know this theme is popular and all over the net but it’s really cool and I didn’t want to spend much time looking for a nice theme.  Anyway, I’m still tweaking things so let me what works, what doesn’t, and what you think.

We are all cowards

2 years ago
by reggie in

So, two days ago I wrote about knowing who’s money we are spending.  I reminded us that every time a government, any government, talks about spending money on a project it is our money they are spending.  A government has no money of its own.  I finished that post by saying that we are all cowards.  Now let me explain.

Our tax system has always been progressive.  That’s really not an appropriate term to describe it because what it really means is that our government takes money from those who have it and gives it to those who don’t.  If you make less than $20,000 per year then you likely pay no income taxes at all.  (please note here that income taxes are completely different than taxes like social security).  If you make more than $200,000 per year then you get taxed very heavily.  Seems fair right? 

Before I go too much farther I want to make sure you understand me completely.  There are real and legitimate reasons to take tax money and give it to the poor and needy.  It is certainly not in our country’s best interest to have people homeless and without food and shelter.  But what about the lady we’ve all seen in the grocery line that pays for milk and orange juice with food stamps and then plops a $20 down for a pack of cigs?   What about that uncle you found out lost his job and is not looking for a new one because ‘he can make just as much on unemployment’?  We’ve all seen them and we all know them.

Now, how would that lady or that uncle behave differently if instead they had to ask their neighbors (who apparently have more money) for their weekly stipend?  Well, they wouldn’t ask.  Why?  Because we are all cowards.  We stand behind our government while it robs those who have more and gives it to us.  Those who get government handouts (and yes they are all handouts) have a moral responsibility to work their a** off to quit taking the handouts.  But as long as they can stand in the shadows and let their government do the dirty work, that’s not going to change.

Am I suggesting that we just turn away from our poor and needy?  Nope.  Our government could run a very effective tax system that is fair for all and funds handouts for those who need it.  But is the federal government really the one who should be involved here?  I’ll get to that next time.

Now quit reading this blog and go get a job!  :)

Who’s money is it?

2 years ago
by reggie in

To date I’ve refrained from talking about politics on my blog but I see so much liberal nonsense on the news that I felt like I had to say something.  I have several topics in my head that I would like to speak on but I’ll start with this one.

I have 4 kids and I’ve tried to raise them with good old-fashioned family values.  Be true to your word, stand on your own two feet, and worship your God. Still I’ve heard my kids talk about the ‘government’s money’.  Recently we were talking about some project that Washington was thinking about funding (don’t remember which one) and one of my kids said that she thought the government should pay for it.  So as President Obama would say, I used that moment as a teaching moment.

I asked my daughter if she wanted to pay for it or if she wanted me to pay for it.  She said of course not, she wanted the government to pay for it.  I explained to her that the government has no money.  All of the money the government spends comes from the citizens through some form of taxes. 

Of course some items are necessary.  We need interstate roads, military defense, and international trade just to name a few.  On the local level I certainly want the police, fire department, or EMTs to show up when I call 911.  There are very legitimate uses of our money.  But I explained to my daughter that the next time you hear of the government wanting to spend money, just ask yourself if you would want to chip in and  help pay for that.  If not, then the government shouldn’t be doing it either.

And this is what the liberals in this country just can’t grasp.  I was watching a recent episode of The Daily Show that had Bill Kristol on as a guest.  Near the end, Jon was very smugly asserting that since the US can run a quality healthcare system (the VA) then every citizen deserves the same.  What he, of course, will not talk about is how that is paid for.  Of course our government _could_ provide world class healthcare for everyone.  Heck, it could do it completely free of charge.  Just walk in to the doctor’s office, flash your medical card, and get what you need.  But who pays for that?  As we just learned the government has no money.  So who pays for it?  Your neighbors pay for it.   Your neighbors pay for it through increased taxes.

And that, my friends, is why we are all cowards.  More on that tomorrow…

big shout out to projectreviews.com

3 years ago
by reggie in ,

Just wanted to give a big shout out to this great site for projector info.  I’m in the market for a lower-end 1080p projector and want to this site for some guidance.  After doing tons of reading I had a few questions and popped off a quick email from their contacts page.  I didn’t expect an response but got an email back within 1 hour.  I exchanged a couple of emails with a gentleman from the site and he politely answered some of my questions.

I’m not sure who runs the site but I really appreciated the quick response and helpful info.  Keep up the good work!

The perfect Windows 7 notebook

3 years ago
by reggie in , ,

Well, the perfect Windows 7 notebook [that I own].  I’m sitting at one of my sons wrestling matches typing this into Windows Live Writer running on Windows 7 on a Penryn Macbook Pro.  And boy is it sweet.

I’ve had either Vista or Windows Server 2008 dual booting on this Mac since the day I bought it and was never really satisfied with it. I blogged how nice it was shortly after I got it but there seemed to be some nagging issues with it.   It always seemed to get too hot.  The other main issue was that it would frequently not got to sleep properly.  It was not uncommon for m to fully charge the battery, use it for a few minutes, close the lid, and then come back the next day to a dead machine.  Very frustrating.

As soon as Windows 7 beta hit the streets I had to give it a try and I am sure glad I did.  The sleep issues seem to have been fixed.  Windows 7 picked up the built-in wireless without needing to install the Boot Camp drivers (though I did install them later to get the keyboard and iSight working).  It also doesn’t seem to get hot any longer.  I’ve used it extensively on my lap both on and off power.  Only slightly warm.   Very nice.

Oh, and the battery life.  Under Vista I really would not get any more than 2 hours.  It definitely seems better.  I would say nearly 3 hours but I don’t have specific data on that. 

What do you get when you combine the sleekness and features of a MacBook Pro with the dual boot goodness of Windows 7 and OS/X?  Get one and find out!  You won’t be disappointed.

Straight from the WTF category

3 years ago
by reggie in , ,

So last night my family and I go to watch some scary movies that had been recorded and find out that our media center computer is not working.  So like a dutiful geekdad, I march into the office to see what is wrong.  I remote into the media center with no trouble but no matter what I try the 360 just won't connect to it.  Running the network tuner it reports poor network performance, way below the 'Acceptable for TV' line.  Hmm.  So I spend the next hour running wires from various ports around the house, switching ports on the switch in the media cabinet, everything I could think of.  Nothing.

I never really paid much attention to the activation prompt that it was giving me when I remoted into it.  Surely MS would not be that stupid.  Surely.

So this morning I tried to connect to a media center computer I had running in a virtual machine (yeah VirtualBox) and it worked without a hitch.  So I remote back into the non-working media center computer and run through the activation process.  Bingo.  360 now connects perfectly and the network tuning wizard shows the exact same network as maxed out on quality.

Lesson learned?  Instead of just disabling Media center functionality and just telling you that until you activate it won't work, MS apparently just cripples it so that it doesn't work but doesn't tell you what is wrong.  Absolutely ridiculous.

 

Whew!

3 years ago
by reggie in ,

I don’t know what the hell happened but I still have my blog posts.  Whew!  I recently moved my blog from a cheap GoDaddy account to my Windows Home Server.  I consider this entirely your fault, dear reader, as if I had more readers then I would feel compelled to host it externally with a fatter pipe.  But I digress…  :)

In any case, while was otherwise occupied (attending the Sun DBTG developers conference in Riga, Latvia) something happened to my server and I came home to my files not working.  They were there but any attempt to open them would give some obscure error about the system not being able to access it.  Clearly this had something to do  with the “special” load balancing driver that WHS uses.  In any case it appeared my music and blog was toast.

Earlier today I learned that WHS maintains another link to your shared folders.  I enabled viewing the protected folders and saw a folder named “DE” on c:.  Peeking there shows the same shared folder directory structure only these work!  Clearly these are sym links as c: is only as 20 gig partition but it was showing nearly 80 gig of data in this folder.  I quickly copied these off to a new machine and rebuilt my WHS server.  Blog restored!

Lesson learned?  Get a second hard drive in your WHS machine so the folder duplication junk can do its thing!

Slide.Show installed as my photo viewer

4 years ago
by reggie in ,

Finally got around to hacking in Slide.Show as my photo viewer.  Yup, you need Silverlight installed to see them but with the way that Silverlight is growing that shouldn’t be a problem.

Go check it out and let me know what you think!

Back in the game — with a new addition

4 years ago
by reggie in ,

Well I’ve been pretty quiet for the past few days and for a very good reason.  His name is Daniel Mitchell Burnett and at 9 lbs. 7 oz. and 21 ” long he is larger at birth than our other 3 children.  He was born at 11am on September 27.

So far it’s been a wonderful time, just like with my other children.  Elevated jaundice levels right after birth, lots of nursing, lots of dirty diapers, and lots and lots of fun and love.

Image 8C-138

Image 8C-142

It’s 9/25. Do you have your Halo 3?

4 years ago
by reggie in

I knew the Halo 3 launch date had arrived last night when I look over and see my 1 1/2 year old putting on the headset and grabbing the controller.  I had to take a a few quick snap.  (never mind his dirty shirt — he had just finished eating without a bib!)

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