LinkedIn

Within about three days of eachother I had two or three invitations to get LinkedIn - added as a member of someone's profile. So I finally decided to take a look. LinkedIn is an online networking tool - it's power is in how easy it is to find a close friend that knows someone you have been trying to meet, such as an owner of a lucrative lcoal business. Great for networking.

I have attended a networking group for about two and a half years, and got to know the members well, but never good enough to know who they rubbed shoulders with. Within 30 minutes using this tool, I was able to find which of my close friend's knew the business owners that I have wanted to reach.

In a way, this site is a business owner's version of MySpace - more business networking instead of social networking.

Technical Support for Macs

If you do not know by now, our computer company is the "IT Department" for hire - local businesses outsource their computer department needs to us, so we deal with everything technical and that of course include Mac computers. The easy thing about technical support for Mac computers is a Mac user has so much pride in using a Mac. Macs are flawless, never crash, have a superior design, and a superior user interface. That is a rough version of the Mantra I hear when a Mac user sees me using a PC. That is what makes supporting Macs so easy - they do tend to be more stable and with this great interface the end users need less help. It also explains my surprise form this support phone call I had the other day:
End User: "I am having an email problem with my Mac."
Me: "OK, what happens?"
End User: "My Mac crashes whenever I open this specific attachment."
Me (Surprised): "Your Mac Crashes?.... Do you mean your email program freezes or the the computer itself is completely frozen... locked up?"
End User: "No not just the email program. the whole thing crashes."
Me (Surprised still): "Your Mac Crashes, and you are admitting it?!?"
OK, maybe I embellished the conversation a little but I had yet to meet a Mac user that would admit to any instability on their computer. Of course now, I am struggling to fix the problem. How do I get advice on a problem that no one believes? Not even myself.

Would life be easier hundreds of years ago?

Being a System Administrator, sometimes I think the part of desktop support would be easier if I started life fourty years earlier... maybe even four hundred years earlier. But then I came across this video that drew a good picture of most likely how technical support was back in the medieval times. That is when I realized that life is just as difficult and/or frustrating in every age, just in a different context! At least with these videos I can enjoy some humor.

Will it blend?

A close friend forwarded me a link to this website: willitblend.com I have heard of this website before, the owner touts the amazing robustness of his blenders by blending ANYTHING. Today's video is the blending of an iPhone! I never thought I would see an iPhone ground to DUST! http://www.willitblend.com/videos.aspx?type=unsafe&video=iphone I think the funniest part after you see this video is to look at the bidding action on the iPhone dust on eBay.

My Worst Nightmare

I came across this video and it is absolutely my worst nightmare. I think I need to go home early today after seeing this.

Fun in the office

We got our projector installed last week in our conference room/breakroom/theatre. The projector and our 9' wide screen work really well for training, watching movies, and impressing prospective clients. Last night I was cleaning out the garage and came across my old Nintendo, so I decided to bring it to the office. I just spent about 10 minutes hooking it up to our projector and surround sound stereo. There was a little excitement as I finally accomplished one of my ultimate childhood dreams and was left totally dissappointed. When you blow up the graphics of a Nintendo and play Mario bros. - little Mario is about 1 foot tall on the screen and the graphics look terrible! Here is a link to a video on how to beat Mario Bros in about 5 minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yl_XPkcTl4 Since I have YET to beat the game, maybe having it on a bigger screen will help.

Microsoft Surface

People are flipping out about the capability of Microsoft Surface (Demonstrated on the Today show 05/30/2007). This was quite an amazing demonstration of what Microsoft could do with this amaziong touch table. It looks like the DiamondTouch that is designed by Mitsubishi. Microsoft's unveiling on their software, Microsoft Surface, is not the first however. After installing Warcraft III on my Windows Vista Laptop I stumbled across this video using the DiamondTouch to play the game Now I just got to figure out a way to get my paws on one of these tables!