Last year I spent a lot of time reading up to improve my business skills.  This year, I am prepared to make better use of what I have learned as well as administer some tough love in the process that will, on the surface, violate a lot of the rules of business management. So below are some New Years resolutions I've made for business: I'm going to administer less and be more hands on to discipline ourselves on how we get things done. Not that I'm going to be some sort of nasty basta...

RWN has a great collection of obnoxious quotes made by famous people last year. Here are some examples: 34) "Perhaps the outpouring of sympathy for [the falsely arrested Duke lacrosse players] Reade Seligman, Collin Finnerty and David Evans is just a bit misplaced....As students of Duke University or other elite institutions, these young men will get on with their privileged lives....They are very differently situated in life from, say, the young women of the Rutgers University women's bask...

Windows Live Writer is a pain because it tries to do its own custom skinning. The Live team really should adhere to the standard Windows UI conventions IMO. It just bugs me that the Live apps, which are pretty good, should have their own wacky look that is different from the rest of Windows.

I have a confession to make. I generally enjoy the company of left-wingers to right-wingers. It's true.  I love to have lively debates but the main observation I have about left-wingers is that they tend to at least think about things more so than the average person.  Sure, most of their opinions are poorly thought out (grin) but I enjoy talking to people who have thought about more than what they've eaten today, what they hope to eat tomorrow, and what they've eaten in the past which ...

  Here are some pictures from this past year!             Captioning: My turtle Cuddles who celebrated his 20th year living with me this year. Ashley on the tramponline. Take a close look at the "family picture"... The toy in the garage at the cottage. Debbie in New York. Alex at Comerica Park. Stupid me and my stinging bees. My hot wife poses in the car. Ryan gets a ba...

  If you have 75% of the below attributes (and be honest) you are probably a gifted person. [ ] Are you a good problem solver? [ ] Can you concentrate for long periods of time? [ ] Are you a perfectionist? [ ] Do you persevere with your interests? [ ] Are you an avid reader? [ ] Do you have a vivid imagination? [ ] Do you enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles? [ ] Often connect seemingly unrelated ideas? [ ] Do you enjoy paradoxes? [ ] Do you set high standards for yourself? [ ] Do y...

If I could imagine the perfect on-line retailer it would have to be Amazon.com.  The only thing they're missing is some sort of iTunes-like manager for going through the store more quickly and making purchasing and getting to information better. I find that even if I don't buy anything, the site is still incredibly interesting purely as a community.

Dilbert author, Scott Adams, recently announced he would be blogging less and would no longer post about controversial topics.  His rationale was that blogging produced little in tangible income but negative reaction to his controversial blogs had the potential to tangibly decrease his income from lost readership. I can relate to that. I often will get an email from someone saying they'll never buy a product I'm associated with because I've offended them with one of my blogs. ...

As the end of the year approaches, I decided to take a look at my schedule for the past year.  For the past 51 weeks, I've averaged working 56 hours per week. If it weren't for my summer vacation, it would have been a higher average.  Assuming that average will hold for the last week (and it will despite it being the holidays) I worked 2912 hours last year give or take an hour or two.  If you divide that by 8, which is the number of hours a normal American works and I worked ...

Next-generation MyColors is almost ready for mass distribution.

I'm out of touch. I didn't get my hands on Winter Wonderland until very recently and I'm in love. What a fantastic theme that is so complete. My desktop     Look closely at how the toolbar is skinned. See how it's irregularly shaped and blends in? Internet Explorer 7 skinning. This snow man is animated and so are the snow flakes and the lights shine. It's really a cool yet surprisingly subtle effect.   The icons are exquisite. And it...

Tragedy of the commons is a game theory that helps spell out why socialism always ultimately fails. It can be summed up with "nobody ever washes a rental car". Private ownership is the key to prosperity in a society. John Stossel has an excellent article that discusses this. For anyone who believes that the government should raise taxes so that it can "help people" more, this article will help show the error in such thinking.

I know it's not nice to say that some people are losers. But that doesn't mean it isn't true. Awhile back I wrote an article on this topic . Now, I'd like to put together this simple test that if someone I know or work with blatantly shows these signs I can just print it out, highlight and hand it to them. Are you a loser? Do you leave a given situation worse than you found it ? For instance, if you borrow something do you bring it back damaged? Loan a loser a car and it'll come back w...

There's something wrong with me. I know it. I can pretend otherwise but I just don't get excited about Christmas anymore. And the reason? I'm selfish. I like getting stuff. I am not really big on personal consumption. I'm notoriously cheap. And thanks to my wife, we (as in she and I) tend to be quite generous on gift giving. And why not? We're blessed to be able to afford to give to our family and friends. But I like getting presents. Not just any old presents, but presents that have th...