04.28.08
Posted in Life at 9:47 am by Gerry's cat
You are being robbed. You are being robbed.
The greatest mass robbery in history is well underway. The only way to stop it is for everyone to understand what is going on.
Find out for yourself: browse to video.google.com, search for and watch “Money As Debt“. In 47 minutes this video explains how you are being robbed, who is doing it and suggests solutions.
Please watch, learn more (see below) and forward this message to everyone you know.
Other important worksThe Way the World Really Works
The Money Masters
Manufacturing Consent
Why We Fight
The War On Democracy
The Panama Deception
Zeitgeist
Web of Debt
Confessions of an Economic Hitman
American Blackout
Timeline of CIA Atrocities
Fourteen Points of Fascism: The Warning Signs
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03.03.08
Posted in Money, Programming at 8:51 am by Gerry's cat
Think it is possible to make money in shareware? It certainly can be. This is a quick summary of my experience with a simple calendar and day planner program that I wrote.
There is (or was) a great program on HP-UX called Datebook. It has a calendar as the main interface and let’s a person enter appointments into a datebook. When the time arrives for datebook entry a reminder pops up. Nice interface and very useful program. Contrast with Outlook, a bloated and ugly monster.
After moving from HP-UX to Windows I found myself missing the Datebook program and wishing something like it existed on Windows. There were a few calendar type programs available at the (1996) but not that many - and none with as simple and elegant an interface as Datebook. So I decided to write what is now a standard learning project: a calendar program.
The first version of the program had only the very minimal features needed to make it useful. The most important thing was to make the program available as quickly as possible, and it had to (of course) work. A car that doesn’t start is not of much use, and neither is a program that doesn’t do what it is supposed to. But just how it worked inside turned out to not be important, at all. It was reliability and usability that mattered.
At this time (still around 1996) the Internet was starting to catch on pretty good, so the obvious thing to do was put the program on the ‘net. But freeware or shareware? Not being rich it seemed like it should have been an easy choice, but for the type of a person who wants to make the world a better place, the decision wasn’t that easy. Still, who doesn’t need a little extra computer-upgrade money?
Getting it ready for general release was quite a bit of work. Everything needs to be tested (all the time), there needs to be a help file, a website, support email, etc. And features need to be consumable by Joe Public, which makes those features 10x the amount of work to implement.
There also needs to be a way for users to register - and especially a way for them to pay. This is where sites like RegNow help out. Although their fees are kind of high there wasn’t too many options back in 1996. At least now there is PayPal (although many people refuse to use PayPal). Checks were also accepted - and led to only one problem, and that seemed an honest mistake. Turns out people who offer to pay are quite honest (it is the ones who don’t pay who are sometimes not so honest).
Speaking of pay, pay how much? A difficult problem. Price things too low and people assume the quality is low. Price too high and it becomes unaffordable, or the perceived value may be less than the cost. I decided to pick a nice round number and make it affordable, an almost painless amount: ten dollars. What I did find out was adding on credit card processing (two dollars) to the cost seemed to have no affect on the number of orders.
So why do some people like the program and order? My program targets a niche market. The goals have always been to have an easy to use interface plus unique and helpful features. Trying to please everyone was never a consideration.
Promotion has not been easy. Google AdWords is a total waste of money, my advice is to avoid it like the plague (putting google ads on a website is of course the other side of the coin, and it can make some money, as long as there are suckers willing to pay for ads). I tried it for several months and got zero sales from it, not a one.
What has worked is make my program available on shareware websites. That however is a lot of work, which is where Rudenko comes in (for a reasonable fee, they list it for you). Then let the customer, who actually wants to buy a specific type of product, find yours. It keeps costs down for everyone and it isn’t necessary to hassle everyone else.
Over the last ten years orders have ranged from roughly 100 to 500 orders per year. The number of orders varies greatly, with it being pretty slow in early years and better in more recent years. It has worked out to an average of about 250 orders a year for the 10 years, for a total of about $25,000. Not so bad for a calendar program.
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03.02.08
Posted in Life at 11:55 am by Gerry's cat
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11.22.07
Posted in Environment at 9:47 am by Gerry's cat
Dear Car Maker,
Please make an electric car for commuting. It doesn’t need to travel 8000 miles on a single charge. It does not need to be capable of 150 miles per hour. It does not need to hold 8 people.
In fact, it only needs to hold one person, do 60Km/h and travel at most 100 Km per charge. It is a vehicle designed for commuting.
Most households own more than one vehicle. If the family goes on a trip, guess what? They will travel together. They will take the gas-powered vehicle.
If I sound a bit sarcastic it is only because I can’t understand what is taking so long. Wake up. Your requirements for electric cars should take reality into account. Electric cars do not need to replace gas-powered cars, they just need to supplement them.
Sincerely,
Gerry
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09.18.07
Posted in Programming at 11:25 am by Gerry's cat
Some of our projects (developed by another company) use web services. A search through the projects finds soap permutations of each web service name 600+ times. The wsdl file for a relatively simple project is 7000 lines long. Alarm bells are ringing!
The World Wide Web Consortium describes the advantages of Web Services:
- “Designed for web applications; makes applications available over the web.”
So is/does PHP. PHP is way simpler.
- “Uses SOAP, XML, WSDL standards, good for interoperability with third parties.”
WSDL stands for Web Services Description Language – in other words the advantage of using web services is because it uses web services!
Any application can interoperate with third parties using any means available/required.
- “Applications can use multiple web services seamlessly.”
Any application can use any set of services it wants to seamlessly. Just design it that way.
- “Interoperability between different platforms/applications (language independent).”
Courtesy XML; also not unique to web services.
- “Support web browsers.”
PHP and many other technologies support web browsers, and they are all much easier to implement.
- “Reusability.”
Not unique to web services.
Web Services are an even worse technology than CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) and like CORBA will suffer a slow and agonizing death (as people realize what garbage it really is). A better choice is messaging middleware, such as JMS or MSMQ for system integration or PHP for browser integration. If someone says “we should use web services” on one of your projects, the proper response is to kick them in the balls as hard as you can.
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09.12.07
Posted in Life at 10:04 pm by Gerry's cat
How important is it you see these documentaries? It is not an exaggeration to say your life may depend on it.
Is your life really at risk? The answer is surprisingly easy to understand after watching these documentaries. Consider the young man in “Why We Fight” who joins the marines. He has certainly put his life in harms way. Others may die as a direct result of his actions. If he were better informed maybe he would have made a different decision. There are many risks we all must face, and many of these risks are as man-made as war.
The first step in protecting one’s self is in understanding. Much of the nasty things that happen in this world wouldn’t be allowed to happen if people were better informed.
The Corporation
This documentary looks at the most powerful entity of our time: the corporation. Corporations affect every aspect of our lives, often in negative ways.
Manufacturing Consent
Based on the book by Noam Chomsky. In Manufacturing Consent Chomsky shows how the media has more than failed to keep the public informed. The corporate controlled media has not only distracted the public with meaningless stories (e.g. Paris Hilton and O.J. Simpson), the media has actively misinformed the public. Here is just one of many examples.
Why We Fight
Why We Fight examines in brutal detail why the United States fights so many wars. It has nothing to do with freedom, “war is a racket“.
Zeitgeist
This may the most shocking documentary you will ever see. Religion, war and money.
The Panama Deception
A detailed example of how the United States uses propaganda to further the causes of the murderous corporate machine, and how the corporate media tows the line.
The Money Masters - How International Bankers Took Control of America
Don’t believe it? This 3 hour history lesson will be a shock to your system. Not only did international bankers take control of America, they encouraged and financed most wars of the last 200 years causing tens of millions of deaths.
Sicko
The profit-driven system of corporations in the health sector is examined in the documentary Sicko. Greed is literally killing people.
The Power of Nightmares
From the BBC, discusses how politicians use terrorism and fear as a way to control populations. With much help from the media, the terrorism threat has been greatly exaggerated.
Without Conscience - the Book
People are generally good - generally. But approximately 1 person in 100 does not have a conscience. Someone like Dick Cheney knows to say for example that he cares about the troops but he does not know how to care. There are people in this world who will do anything to rise up in the ranks of power. To understand that some people are simply dangerous and that they should never be trusted read “Without Conscience” by Robert Hare.
Another List
Here is another list of documentaries, which includes the ones above and a few more.
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05.28.07
Posted in Music at 3:29 pm by Gerry's cat
Why You Should
The RIAA is an illegal cartel who’s purpose has historically been to to fix prices. They used to use a little trick they liked to call the “minimum advertised price” that they would enforce on stores to keep prices artificially high (most stores didn’t mind so much). I say “used to” because it was illegal. After many years of defrauded music buyers, the RIAA was finally fined for it and ordered to stop.
Cartel’s are supposed to be illegal in places like America, but you know how things work. Well, if you don’t know how things work, here it is in a nutshell: pretty much everyone is screwing everyone else as best they can and they are often breaking the law while they are at it. But since it is a white collar crime, not much is done about it. The government, which is supposed to be looking out for the people’s interests don’t actually care about the little guy (you). De Beers is another cartel that should not be operating in America.
RIAA members screw their bands over bigtime. Only a few strike it big. With most, it is the record companies that make the money not the bands.
Lately the main purpose of the RIAA has been to sue people. They are screwing ordinary people over by suing them, people like you, your friends and family, kids, grandmothers, anyone. The time has come to fight back.
How To Legally Screw Them Over
- Do not support RIAA members. Find out if a label is a member (click here) and do not buy their CDs. If you must buy, buy used on sites such as Amazon.com.
- Sell your CDs that were published by RIAA members.
- Buy CDs published by non-RIAA members.
- Here are some other good ideas on what you can do.
Of course you want to support the bands you do care about - if you buy a used CD of a band and you like it, send them a donation. Tell your friends. Support the bands, not those mafia bastards at the RIAA.
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05.05.07
Posted in Money at 8:27 pm by Gerry's cat
My owner has read “Finish Rich” by David Bach. David recommends that you save your money - instead of buying lattes (or mochas) put that money into a retirement savings account. We all spend money here and there, and it adds up - he calls it the “Latte Factor”. Rocket science it isn’t but he makes a good point.
Now if you really love your your special coffees the whole deal sucks. You are supposed to give it up? No: you can have your latte and keep your cash (or at least most of it). A latte or mocha that costs $4 at Starbucks can be made at home for under a $1. Instead of enriching Starbucks investors, enrich yourself: make it yourself, enjoy and still finish rich.
The Do It Yourself Mocha (or Latte)
Making a great mocha (or latte) is actually pretty easy. First you need some equipment. My owner has a Krupps espresso maker which cost under fifty bucks and should last for years. You’ll also need some coffee (fine grind for espresso), milk, and chocolate drink mix.
Choose the best chocolate available; you can’t go wrong with Ghirardelli’s Double Chocolate.
- Make the espresso - follow the instructions that came with your espresso maker
- Put about 8 oz. of milk into a big mug and add 1-2 teaspoons of chocolate drink mix
- Microwave for about 70 seconds on high - careful, don’t let the milk boil over
- Add one shot of espresso to the milk
- Stir and enjoy!
You’ll need to make some adjustments to suit your own tastes, but the above recipe is a good starting point. To make a latte use vanilla syrup instead of chocolate drink mix.
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04.29.07
Posted in Ads at 8:18 pm by Gerry's cat
I noticed when my owner browses the web he often clicks on ads. More precisely, he control-clicks the ads (especially Google ads) to open them in another Firefox tab. Later he closes the tab without even looking at it. Why does he do this?
He wants to support his favorite websites - the websites make money by selling ads and without money the websites would go away. Of course, advertisers don’t like this clicking much, but my owner doesn’t seem to care. He doesn’t like advertisers much. He says they are a bunch of liars that drive up the price of everything with their absurdly inefficient business model. He also says the worse a product’s quality, the more they advertise it. Sure there are exceptions, some products are great quality (like 1&1.com web hosting - see link below).
When I find the time (cats sleep a lot!) I’ll write more about how inefficient advertising really is - it is so bad it makes the gasoline engine look efficient!
This site hosted by 1&1.com
The World’s #1 Web Host
Starting at $3 a month!
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04.27.07
Posted in Programming at 8:09 pm by Gerry's cat
My owner is a software developer by trade and seems to always want to get paid for work that he does. Sometimes when we sit at the computer he reads articles about open source and I wonder why he doesn’t write open source software and give it away. Wouldn’t it be cool if not only open source programmers, but lawyers, carpenters and everyone else worked for free?
Sometimes my owner uses a program called Open Office and he had a computer running Linux for a while. Open source and free software is great for users and businesses, but is open source good for programmers? If my owner doesn’t get paid, then how will he be able to buy cat food?
Consider a fictional programmer, Freida. For months Freida spent much of her free time working on Plumware 5.0 – an open source, freely downloadable and free to use software application for plumbers. Late one Sunday night the pipe on Freida’s kitchen sink broke, resulting in dish water all over the kitchen floor.
After consulting the online yellow pages Freida called up Jake the Plumber to fix her drain pipes. After the work was done Freida and Jake exchanged the expected small talk as Freida got out her check book. During the chitchat Freida mentioned she worked on Plumware 5.0 and asked Jake if he used it, and what a coincidence, it turns out he did use it. Jake was almost going to give Freida a discount, but he had just bought a boat. So Jake charged Freida the full amount for his services, $175.00, and left with check in hand.
Free Software For All
Just how much free software is out there? Check out SourceForge.Net, probably the biggest open source website out there. Their “Software Map” shows tens of thousands of projects. These projects are in various stages of development, but many have working versions of the software ready to download. Many are for Linux but many are also for Windows and for MAC. The vast majority are available under the “GNU General Public License” or “Open Source Initiative” licensing schemes, meaning free to use. There is also thousands of freeware programs available through other websites, such as download.com.It is quite interesting that SourceForge.Net is “Powered by collaborative software development tools from VA Software“. Why is this interesting? A look at VA Software’s website provides the answer. VA Software specializes is enabling offshore software development. So the very company that is sponsoring so much open source and free software development is also helping companies move software development offshore. Neat trick!
The Microsoft Connection
There must be a Microsoft connection, after all we are talking about software here. Certainly Microsoft has been harmed by open source. Linux, MySQL, Open Office, every download potentially means a lost sale of Microsoft Windows, SQL Server and Microsoft Office. The same is true of all the other software that is now free that Microsoft was hoping to sell.
Take China. Not literally, think of all the lost Microsoft sales now that China has standardized on Linux. That is many, many millions of dollars in lost sales. Sales that would have gone to an American company, with America employees and investors. Sales that would have benefited American programmers. It also means lost revenue for the tax man, so no new roads for those poor Seattlites stuck in traffic. A ton of money, that would have found its way to America, will now not be coming. The same trend is occurring around the world. Billions of dollars will now no longer be benefiting America programmers.
Motivation
Of course there is one area where I do understand a little of the open source programmers motivations: must… destroy… evil… Microsoft… empire…
While it is hard to agree with Microsoft’s business tactics of the 80’s and 90’s, it might be better to work at Microsoft as a programmer than at The Home Depot as stock boy. Besides, the past is the past. Microsoft has settled, paid fines, changed its contracts and itself; Microsoft has paid its debt to society. If Sun Microsystems can forgive Microsoft (they settled the Java thing and agreed to have their software interoperate) then anybody can (the many millions in cash Microsoft gave Sun didn’t exactly hurt). And compared to companies like Exxon and Monsanto, the Microsoft crew are a bunch of angels. There are much more harmful companies out there.
Are Open Source Programmers Stifling Competition?
Microsoft’s past practices have stifled competition, but now there is a new kid on the block. The new kid is open source. Why would any company (or anyone) develop a program when there is a decent and free application that does the job already out there? It would not make economic or business sense. How can anyone compete against free?
Eventually companies are going to wake up to all this, not just free, but really good free software out there and buy less commercial software. It is happening already, companies are buying less software. If people and companies buy less software, how are programmers going to get paid?
Less cash for software means less cash for software developers.
There is no way around this fact, it is simply Economics 101.
If people stopped paying lawyers do you think lawyers wages would go up or go down?
Offshore Outsourcing
Before there was open source offshore outsourcing wasn’t an issue. Offshore outsourcers are big users of open source software. Gee, anybody besides me see a problem here? The creation on of open source software has supported the whole offshore outsourcing industry. This has not exactly created more programming jobs in America.
In the End
We will always need more software, at least that is how it has been since the very first program was written. In the past software was, how shall I put this, not really of the highest quality, driving the need for more (hopefully better) software. But these days software is pretty decent. The truth is, if no new software were to become available the average PC user could make do with what they have. Maybe they’ll still need new software, but perhaps less of it than in the past. Less software, less money for software developers.
No doubt the fact that American companies are doing more with less has also had something to do with the decline in wages and rise in unemployment for software programmers. But it seems logical to me that with all this free open source software and freeware floating around that the value of software, and by association, the value of programmers, must be dropping and will continue to drop. Free open source software might just be contributing to the decline of the “great” American Programmer. Are open source programmers programming their way out of a job? It is a question, not an answer, but it is a question that should be asked by all programmers.
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