In general, the customization is just something I can't live without, but problems with WordPress definitely contributed to my decision. WordPress is great, but doesn't work well for me in this hosted setting.

The Daily Technocrat will continue on at the following address: http://the-technocrat.blogspot.com/. As you can see, I've already started the customization process by inserting a site search and a del.icio.us-linked tag list. For those of you who subscribe to my RSS feed, don't forget to update the feed address: http://the-technocrat.blogspot.com/atom.xml

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Also – check out my new blog project: HelpDesk KnowledgeBase (rss)

Here's the idea of Helpdesk-KB:

This blog is a play-by-play of the issues and solutions I come across while administrating 400+ machines and 1200+ users.  This is where I track my past issues, and share my solutions with other IT pros, people interested in the IT life, and you!  Think of it as a virtual apprenticeship in the IT world!

See you all over at Blogger!

Top 100 Renewable Energy Projects

This really is a great site. It makes you wonder – why don’t these ideas take off? Could it be that the politicians under corporate oil control don’t want to lose their method of revenue? But what good is money if the climate kills you?

Seriously, if it’s not obvious already, the reason why electric cars, etc. haven’t taken off is because the energy companies want to develop their own lines of distribution so they can continue to profit. Hydrogen? Much less efficient than 100% electric vehicles. But the oil company lobbyists want to profit, not do what’s right. The bad part about blocking the best technologies for profit is tht it ends up taking money out of your pocket. Instead of a dollar or two for 100 miles in an electric car, you’ll spend much more to fill up on hydrogen.

And that’s just the way they want it. And since they own enough sway in government, there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Or is there?

Here’s an interesting idea: Clean Elections. Basically, this means you can’t buy your way into a political office. Everyone gets the same amount, and it is up to you to get elected, based on your principals. But why not apply that to all politics? If a company wants to drill for oil in your backyard, should they be allowed to buy off your representative? If anything, why not have them try to put the money towards the citizens, and let them decide? After all, we are the ones who have to live with these decisions…

The fire hazard

A light bulb had burned out, and while replacing it, I noticed that the bulb was a 70-watt unit, and the recessed lighting receptacle was only rated for 60W. This can be a fire hazard, so I checked a few other bulbs – all 70 watts! A few were even 100 watts, with the labels on the recessed lighting turning brown from the heat!

This was bad. I counted how many 60W bulbs I would need. For my small house, I needed about 50. Ouch. “But wait”, I thought, “If I have 50 bulbs at 60W each, and I pay ComEd 8.275 cents per kilowatt/hour, I can figure out how much these bulbs are costing me.”

A kilowatt/hour is a measurement of how much energy is flowing to your house. It represents 1000 watts being used in an hour. So let’s say I have my lights on for about 43.5 hours per week… (when I’m home during the week, and 8 hours on the weekend)

Excel to the rescue

70W x 50 bulbs = 3500 watts
3000 watts x 43.5 hours per week = 152,250 watt/hours = 152.25 kilowatt/hours
152.25 kW/hours per week * 4 weeks = 609 kW/hours per month
609 kW/hours per month * 8.275 cents per kW/hour = $50.39 per month

$43 per month! Just for the lights! That doesn’t count for computers, bathroom lights, fridge, TV, AC, etc.
OK, so settling down, I could just go and buy 50 60W bulbs. This would cost me about $1.00 for a 4-pack from Home Depot, or about $12.50. It would also save me $7.19 per month, making my bill about $43 instead of $50. I would pay off the new bulbs in 1.7 months, and save $7 per month after that. Pretty weak, especially since 60W bulbs usually need to be replaced about every 400-800 hours (on average), which means every 9-18 weeks.

However, Home depot also sells Compact Fluorescent bulbs. CF bulbs are basically like the big, long bulbs you see at work or in the grocery store. They are filled with a gas that glows when a small amount of electricity is applied to it. They use hardly any energy, and are more efficient than a regular bulb, which uses a lot of electricity to heat a small wire. CF’s are different than the big, long ones, in that someone made the tubes very narrow and curled them all into the shape of a normal light bulb. Sometimes there is even a glass covering over the fluorescent tubing to make it look more “normal”.

The good thing about the CF bulbs is that you can get a 6-pack that costs less than $30 these days, with each bulb putting out as much light as a 60W bulb, while only using 13 watts each. In addition, these bulbs are rated for anywhere between 8000 to 10,000+ hours.

The bad part is that each bulb costs about $5, instead of 25 cents.  Ow.
OK, so let’s see what would be better over the course of 8000 hours of use, the equivalent of 3.8 years of use for me.

Regular bulbs
Cost for bulbs: 50 bulbs, each replaced (on average) every 800 hours = $125
Cost of electricity for 8000 hours: $1,986.00
Total cost: $2111, or about $46.29 per month

CF bulbs
Cost for bulbs: 50 bulbs, lasts for 8000 hours = $250
Cost of electricity for 8000 hours: $430.30
Total cost: $680.30, or about $14.92 per month

Conclusion
So what do I do? Replace the 70W bulbs with 60W bulbs, or bite the $250 bullet and go with the 13W bulbs that output as uch as 60W bulbs?

The CF bulbs, of course.

In fact, I then replaced every bulb in my entire house with CF, including bathrooms, lamps, outside lights, even the garage light. Total cost was around $325, no small amount, to be sure. But then again, saving $50 per month on 70+ bulbs…pretty sweet.

Project Name: Compact Fluorescent Replacement x 50
Initial Cost: $250
Recurring cost: $250 every 8000 hours, plus $14.92/month
(new bulbs and energy costs, bulbs will probably be cheaper by then)
Time involved: 90 minutes
(Get the bulbs, remove old, install new)
Time to pay off initial investment: about 8 months
(varies, the more you use them, the faster they pay off)

FREE MONEY: $31.37/month for 50 replacements
(about 63 cents per bulb replaced)

*Combine these savings with a seven-day thermostat and save $54.11 per month! (about $650 per year!)

Saving money by managing your heater

It’s winter here in Chicago, and it’s cold. If it’s winter for you right now, you know that your bills are a lot higher due to the increased heating costs. Whether you heat your home with gas, electric or oil, you can benefit from some thermostat management.

Turn the thermostat down
Whether you like it or not, 68 degrees is a perfectly normal temperature for the human being to be in. It may feel cold at first, but you can survive just fine at 68. If you’re cold, that is what clothes are for. You shouldn’t be in the dead of winter and sitting in your beach clothes at 75-78 degrees.

Not only are you overheating so you can wear shorts in winter, but the bigger the difference in out- and inside temperature, the more expensive it will be to maintain the temperature. In addition, whether your house is at 50 or 80 degrees, the fridge will have to work to keep itself at about 35 degrees (F) and the freezer at about 30 (F).

Also keep in mind that the human body is about equal to a 175-watt heater. You’re supposed to be able to keep yourself warm at a reasonable temperature like 68. If not, see a doctor.

Get a 7-day thermostat
I picked up a deluxe model at Home Depot for $30. It was the cheapest one they had, but allows for the themostat to be adjusted at 4 different times during the day, 7 days a week, plus an extra ‘special day program’ with 4 times. Here’s how it works:

On a given weekday, I know that I’ll be in bed from midnight to 6:45AM. I’ll be up and about from 6:45AM to 7:15AM. I’ll be gone from 7:15AM to 5:00PM. I’ll be home from 5:00PM to 10:00PM, and I’ll be in bed from 10:00PM to midnight. On Saturday and Sunday, I don’t know when I’ll be home during the day, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be in bed from midnight-8:00AM and 10:00PM-midnight.

Looking at this information, on the weekdays my house sees me in bed for 8 hours, 45 minutes. I’m gone for 9 hours, 45 minutes. I’m home for 5 hours, 30 minutes. If I keep the thermostat at 68, the temp is higher than it needs to be for me in bed or at work. That’s 18 hours, 30 minutes per day that I am over-heating my house.

Set the 7-day thermostat
Based on the above information, I know I can have the following settings:

*Weekdays*

• 6:30AM: set temp to 68 degrees (I wake up 15 minutes later)
• 7:30AM: set temp to 55 degrees (I left 15 minutes earlier)
• 4:40PM: set temp to 68 degrees (I get home in 20 minutes)
• 10:30PM: set temp to 65 degrees (I fell asleep in a warm bed 30 minutes ago)

*Weekends*

• 7:30AM: set temp to 68 degrees (I wake up 15-30 minutes later)
• 10:30PM: set temp to 65 degrees (I fell asleep in a warm bed 30 minutes ago)

*Special Day Programming*
(there is a ‘SDP’ button on the thermostat to put on a daily override for weekday holidays, etc.)

• 7:30AM: set temp to 68 degrees (I wake up 15-30 minutes later)
• 10:30PM: set temp to 65 degrees (I fell asleep in a warm bed 30 minutes ago)

As you can see, I can time the heat so that I never notice the lower temperatures, and in the meantime, the heater takes a break during a large part of the day (and the fridge hardly has to do anything all day). That also means I’m not paying to have my house heat itself when it’s empty, and have my fridge fight the house to stay cold.

A few very important points

• The amount you save on your bills will relate to how well insulated your house is, how long you can let it be cold, etc. I can’t say you will save $xxx per month, but most people save anywhere between 10-30%, and sometimes as much as 50%+, depending on if you can use the sun to heat your house by opening curtains, efficient windows, etc.
• Don’t forget about the pets! If you have a pet, make sure the temperature during the day is one that will be warm enough for them!
• The thermostat will pay for itself very quickly. My gas bill is about $100, and the electric is about $60. (I’ll explain how I do that later) Let’s say I save 20% on gas, and 5% on electricity from the fridge. That’s $20 + $3 per month I save!
• Install the thermostat yourself. It’s easy, and comes with easy instructions. If you have an electrician do it, it will take a while to pay off that cost in energy savings
• The new themostat comes with a function that will tell you to change the filter after xxx hours of furnace operation. You can program the hours. A clean filter doesn’t make the furnace work as hard, and reduces risk of fire, in addition to cleaning the air. Bonus!
• My thermostat had a ‘copy’ feature, where I programmed Monday and copied it to the rest of the weekdays. A big time saver.

Project Name: Thermostat Management
Initial Cost: $30 (after tax)
Recurring cost: $3.08 per year
($0.26/month for a 4-pack of AA batteries for the new thermostat)
Time involved: 30 minutes
(remove old themostat, install new thermostat, program thermostat)
Time to pay off initial investment: 6 weeks
(varies, depends on insulation in the house and how aggresive your programming is)

FREE MONEY: $22.74/month
(varies, I estimate I’ll save at least $23 per month, about 20% on gas, 5% on electricity)

The best part about blogging is the research aspect. In fact, that’s what I try to do here, mostly. Why not use this as a forum for the advancement of others? In return, I hope to get feedback on my ideas and we can share in the advancements.

Take this posting I did a while ago. I wanted to find a way to trade in an assrt (my car) and lose the same amount of debt (credit cards). In the process, I wanted to gain something else (in this case, a higher credit rating and lower mortgage payments), otherwse there was no sense in moving assets around. I worked out a specific order to do things in, and I am happy to say the following:

This blogger is putting his money where his mouth is.

I sold my car about two weeks ago, and am paying off my last credit card as we speak. I think this is what blogging should be all about; sharing each other’s expirience to collectively become more knowledgeable.

So far, I have only found one problem with my plan, and it was from feedback from a co-worker. OK, so he didn’t comment, but still… The problem is that when you trade in a car for another car, you only have to pay sales tax on the difference in price. So if you trade in a car worth $10K, and the new car is $18K, you only pay sales tax on the $8K difference. By doing my plan, you pay sales tax on the full $18K, since you sold the car for cash.

That’s OK though, because since I sold my car for $10K, that is only about an extra $800 in sales tax on the new car. Sounds like a lot, but on a 48-month loan, like in my original posting, it only amounts to $16.67. I am planning on easily making that up due to the higher mileage of the new car I’m looking at.

Wish me luck, and if you want to contribute to our collective knowledge, feel free to comment!

Who thinks up these ideas? I’m sure they’re highly paid consultants who don’t have any idea on what people really want to see or just have some other agenda (Home Alone 3 and Brokeback Mountain). I mean, what is up with the hierarchy here? Should people come up with the ideas for movies, maybe even help write them? Seems like having your product designed by your target audience is a win-win situation.

I like this idea, so I introduce to you, “WikiScript”. Basically, anyone can log onto the web site, and search by genre. Let’s say someone wants to help write a comedy. Click on the ‘Comedy’ section of the site, and you will see all of the works in progress listed, and a short description, much like the back cover of a DVD.

Anyone registered with a user account could edit any script, and anyone could edit their edits. Furthermore, there would be a mechanism in place that would keep track of how many words you have contributed to a script.

In the end, when the script is done, it ould be listed as ‘completed’, and have a list of all of the contributors, and how many words they contributed. The script would be free to be read by anyone.

To compensate people for their creative genius, the license for use would be that any production that earns money with the script would have to pay a portion of the proceeds (maybe 10%?) to the authors. That 10% would be divided up by how much each author contributed.

Sound like a good idea? I think so! Let me know if you like this idea, and I’ll make the site.

http://intranet.domain.com/joomla

with a great backend:

http://intranet.domain.com/joomla/administrator

username: admin
password: whatever you put in when you installed Joomla

We’re looking pretty good with all of our sample data in there, but it’s time you learned how to administrate Joomla. Lucky for you, they have a manual for the Administrator backend.

Read it.

Un-publishing the sample data

I want to keep the sample data in the site so I can look at it later if I need help figuring out how to make a menu, or if I want to copy off of something. But I don’t want to have people see it.

It’s easy to ‘un-publish’ these pages in Joomla. They’ll still be there in the admin backend, but not be published to the frontend.

Log in to the admin backend.
Click ‘Content Items Manager’ (news). Click the checkbox at the top of the list to select all of the stories. Click the ‘Unpublish’ button on the top-right menu.

On the top-left menu, do the same for:
Content > Static Content (web pages)
Modules > Site Modules (we’ll turn a few back on in a sec – modules are how components display stuff on the web site. think of component-module as computer-screen)
Menu > mainmenu (except leave ‘Home’ published)
Menu > othermenu
Menu > usermenu (except ‘Logout’, if you take this away and publish the ‘login’ site module, users won’t be able to log out..)
Menu > topmenu

OK, have a look at the site now. All clean. But wait – we told the main menu to publish the ‘home’ link! Well, the menu itself isn’t published. On the admin backend, go back to the site modules and publish the main and user menus.

Now the site is ready to be made your own.

Check out the default site modules, and see if you’re lucky enough to be able to use some of those. I went with mainmenu, usermenu, login form, syndicate (RSS feed maker), and template chooser (just for now, so I can easily test all of my templates as a user). I also went and published one example news item, and set it to display to the frontpage. Since I’m not going to be using the news archive, all of my news will have to be on the front page to be visible. However, it is possible to navigate to a published, non-front-page news story from within a published front-page news story. Bottom line, don’t publish it if you don’t want it out there.

At this point, the junk is not being displayed on the web site, and before I install any third-party components and modules, I want to decide on how my site will look.

Installing Templates

If you haven’t found a template you want to use, or want to use the default templates, either go find one or skip ahead…

In the admin backend, hit Installers > Templates – Site (because we want to change the look of the web site, not the admin backend)

Hit ‘browse’ and find the .zip file you downloaded for your template. Click ‘upload and install’. It’s that easy. (Note: Joomla looks for a specifically-put-together zip file. Sometimes people have the template zip file along with a README or something inside of another zip file. Joomla doesn’t like this, you’ll have to get to the bare template .zip file.

Hit ‘Continue’ and repeat for all of your templates. When you’re done, log out and go to the web site frontend to play with the templates. Choose your favorite.

I decided on one that is called apple_com. It basically looks exactly like the www.apple.com web site. I figure I’ll put a real apple on top and have a humorous educational site…

Now you can unpublish the template chooser module, and go to site > templates > site templates. Select your template of choice and choose ‘default’. ‘assign’ is used if you want different templates for different parts of your site.

Note: I noticed what may be a bug, in that, if you leave template chooser on a template, it will use that template, even when the template chooser module is unpublished. No matter what template to tell the site to use in the admin backend. ??? Workaround: make sure your template is chosen when you un-publish the template chooser module, and then set the default template in the backend.

Summary
Time spent in article: 60 minutes (30 minutes to read admin manual)
Time left for project: 295 minutes (over halfway done on time, and looking great!)
Goals accomplished:

• Learned how to use the admin backend
• Cleaned up the Joomla installation, while retaining valuable references
• Selected which default modules to use
• Selected the site design via template

In addition, it is also important to note that there are a lot of modules out there that allow you to connect Joomla to other web systems. A perfect example of this is a phpBB forum. Basically, I would install the forum in the /forum directory of my web server, install Joomla in the /joomla folder, and find a little module that links Joomla to the forum and provides the SSO that I’m looking for. This is definitely another plus for Joomla, in that you not only have LOTS of modules to choose from, but chances are that you can tie other web apps into Joomla.

Speaking of Joomla…

Installing Joomla

Got the latest .zip install file from joomla.org? Make a folder on your desktop called ‘Joomla’ and extract the contents of the zip file to that folder. Windows has a free extraction utility built in, but a lot of people use WinZip (trial version – free!).

You should have a 10MB folder now. I know, it’s huge. But worth it.

Fire up your favorite free FTP client, I use an old version of WS_FTP. It’s not offered by the company any more, but you can find a copy of WS_FTP LE here: oldversion.com.

You should have an FTP account set up for the server. FTP into the server using your credentials, and find the web root. This will be listed as /wwwroot, and might have folders like /public_html and /public_ftp in it. If you’ve got a folder called public_html, open it up. Transfer the /joomla folder from your desktop to the web server. This will take a while, so we’ll go do something else for a bit.

Setting up the MySQL database for Joomla

You should have phpMyAdmin installed. If you don’t, install it. It’s a big help in managing the MySQL backend of the web server. Log in to MySQL and create a user named ‘joomla’ (no quotes) and give it a password. Then create a database called ‘joomla’ (no quotes) and give the user ‘joomla’ all-access rights to the database. What we’re doing here is giving the joomla installation its own user credentials so it can work with the MySQL server without having to use a person’s name and password.

Joomla should be done uploading by now. If it’s not, see if there are any other components you might want. Or look for a template that will make your web site look the way you want. I went over to joomlaya and found a few good ones that are 1024 pixels wide (a lot of templates are only 800 wide – watch out if you don’t want this). As with the components, the look of my site might not be what fits your situation.

Now that all of the files are on the server, fire up your browser and go to http://yourserver.domain.com/joomla. You should be greeted by the ‘pre-installation check’ page. Yes, it really is going to be this easy!

Check that the required folders have the right permissions. You can usually set the permissions using your FTP client. If having the permissions set to 755 doesn’t work, you can set them to 777 and then switch them back to 755 later. Test to make sure this works on your web server though. Don’t worry about configuration.php, we’ll get it later.

When able, hit next. Agree to the GPL, next.

host name – localhost
username – joomla (remember?)
password – **********
DB name – joomla
database prefix – jos_

This last setting is OK. A lot of tables get put in the joomla DB from components, etc., and the table prefix just makes it easier to tell what tables belong to what component. I’ve seen some components rely on the jos_ prefix for Joomla tables, so just leave it.

I always install sample data. It’s easier/faster to modify existing menus, etc. than to create them.

Name your site.

Enter in an admin email address and password.

You can choose what default permissions get applied to new folders and files when you install components, etc. I kept the defaults.

OK, this part is important. Fire up the FTP client and copy the text it gives you and replace the contents of configuration.php-dist with that text. Rename configuration.php-dist to configuration.php. Delete the /installation directory. NOW you can see your site by clicking the ‘view site’ button.

The website is online. And has a lot of sample news and menus. Good job.

Summary

Time spent in this article: 60 minutes
Time remaining for project: 325 minutes
Goals accomplished:

• Set up MySQL for Joomla
• Install the Joomla Core
• Find a template that will make Joomla look like I want it

In the process of configuring Ubuntu to be a web server, the soon-to-be-boat-anchor machine I was using died. That’s probably why it was pulled from production…

Anyway, I had to go find some instructions that were for my version of Ubuntu, and found these very excellent instructions by Till Brehm and Falko Timme at howtoforge.com. Follow their directions, and you’ll have a full-fledged LAMP web server with mail and ftp support, which will get you up to speed with where I’m at now… with the web server running, plugged into the power strip and ethernet jack only. Everything will be done via the web and FTP from here on out!

While we wait for the Joomla Core to download…

Choosing additional packages for Joomla

I made this simple on myself. I loaded up the Joomla Developer Forge, sorted by date (recent first) and downloaded anything that looked like it might fit into either a) where my organization is at or b) where they could be/might want to be with this intranet tool. It’s important to stay focused here. There are a lot of “cool” components out there, but not all of them will be helpful. You’ll notice I have more than one event calendar solution, etc. This is because I’m not sure which (if any) will work for me. Here’s what I got, along with the author comments.

It is important to note that my organization is different than yours! I’ll only use maybe a half-dozen of these, but since there are good and bad modules, this is what you call the ‘shotgun approach’ – try it all and see if you get a hit!

Components that look interesting for this project: (some more important than others)

Gottesdienst Component
This project is aimed to contain a little custom Joomla! component I’ve written to maintain the service events for the web page of our church.

Joomnik Gallery
This is a simple component displaying images of items from specific folders, using CSS to shape frontend display and Javascript for slideshow. Image operations must be performed through FTP or Media Manager. Each item can have up to 10 fields of information associated with it, which are stored in Joomla database. In case of multilanguage site, common words used in items description can be translated.

SEF Service Map
SEF Service Map Component creates a complete sitemap (index) for Your site, and is a good solution for Joomla! and Mambo CMS. Component uses standard defined menus to generate a dynamic site map. This Map is integrated with standard CMS components, like: content, weblinks, contacts and newsfeeds. Thanks to mambots integration, component has open structure and can be integrated with additional components, like: galeries, forums, shops and other. Components integrated with Sef Service Map are at the moment: – Mambo Phpshop – VirtueMart – Simpleboard Forum – Joomlaboard Forum – PhpBB Forum and the next mambot-integrators coming soon. Now, You can configure the number of sublevels, columns, visible menus, menu items and other parameters.

josCommunity
josCommunity is a custom Joomla portal designed with all the needs of a community website. josCommunity aims to provide a one-click solution to the need for community projects and sites. Current features are: Community based web site, Photo Album, User Home Pages, Private Messaging, Forums, Mailing Lists, Glossary, Calendar, Download Repository, FAQs, Bad Word Filtering, Online Polls, Awards for Users, Google Sitemap Generator, Dynamic User Sitemap, User Shoutbox, Advanced Search Engine Friendly Management System, Advanced Site Statistics Tracking

MetaFly mambot
For up to date versions of this bot, please visit: http://www.jomres.net/component/option,com_docman/task,cat_view/gid,20/Itemid,79/ I don’t know about anybody else, but I get bored with searching through the text of my content to find sensible words to use in the meta keywords of a given page. metaFly is a mambot that will search through the content of the page being viewed & will append frequently occuring words to the keywords section of your meta data (on the fly). It has several filters: Offending elements, which will simply filter out something that you don’t like, eg “, stopwords, which will filter out specific words, and goldwords, which are words that should be retained regardless of the frequency of their appearance.

Header Image
This module allows to change images based on Section-, Category-, Main Menu or Current Menu Item-ID of the actual content. Supports default image file, checks for presence of image files and supports Module Class Suffix for CSS styling. With its ability to support HTML Code integration also Flash files can be used in addition to static images.

jAwards
This components helps you to manage awards in a Joomla: You can create medals, hand them out to the users, and display them e.g. in Simpleboard or Community Builder.

Joomla OWA intergration
This will be a module that will Connect to your Exchange server 2003 OWA.

JEvents
This project will bring the well known and loved Events Calendar to Joomla. Originally by Eric Lamette, mod by Dave McDonnell. This project will host the component (events), the related calendar module (events_cal) and the latest events module (events_latest). Here you can: * let us know what features you’d like to see and * report bugs encountered by the existing events components and modules in Joomla installations

Birthday Component
Simple birthday component and related module. In the admin interface you can insert people’s name and birthdate. The module will show upcoming birthdays in the next x days.

Player Profiles
A component for a team database with profiles and uploadable image files.

perForms
perForms is a Joomla/Mambo Component, that allows admins to easily create dynamic forms using this component on their site. Results can be emailed to any email addresses, or saved in a database table and using a basic report page, all results in database can be viewed. All form elements and simple validation rules are supported.

Google Adsense Referrals Module
Google Adsense Referrals Module allows webmasters to place Googles new referral ads on ones site. The module is easy to use and covers all the languages available for these referral ads.

Banner Manager Advanced
This component is an rewrite of the Joomla included banner manager with loads of added features including, start date / end date, list multiple banners in multiple locations PLUS lots more – worth checking out!!

Submit Content
Want to expand your sites with a lot of useful articles? Why not let your users or guests share their contents and ideas! This component is based on EZ CZ Submit from MamboZip.com (now is www.joomlaya.com). The project aim to enhanced, updated, and fixed many bugs in EZ CZ Submit. Some new features in Submit Content component: – Full multiligual support. – Changed the whole source code to enhanced User’s Accessibility and Interface. – Administrator can now config the MAXSIZE of upload images! – Intergrated SecurityImage of WalterCedric –> better anti spamer and hacker. – Installer Guide is now more clear. Auto chmod created folder. – and many more…

ExtCalendar Events Calendar
This events calendar component & mini-calendar module are ports of the gorgeous-looking ExtCalendar 2 by Mohamed Moujami at extcal.sourceforge.net. Allows for easy addition and management of customizable events to your site’s calendar. This joomla project has been created because the original project at mamboforge seems not to be maintained any longer.

Analytics
Get Fantastic Stats for your website with Google analytics Obtenez des statistiques hors du commun avec Google analytics

Player Roster
A small solution to show the world who is playing in your team a picture and some personal stats about the player. Right now it can only manage one category of players, but categories will be added soon, so that this component can be userd to manage multiple teams (e.g. football team, cheerleaders, junior team)

josquote
Josquote creates graphically pleasing quotes from text in articles. Just {josquote}quote something{/josquote} and it will show that text in nice indented area. http://www.primakoala.com/josquote/

DutyRoster
This component will allow registered users to sign-up/volunteer for various duties and various times. This is useful for organizations and groups that need help from their members with events. It will allow users to pick a role and a time off of a grid. Other members will be allowed to view the filled and available slots and sign up for remaining available slots.

What’s On
A system to manage listings for events on your Joomla! site. Post events according to categories, list upcoming events for each category, list upcoming events for next seven days, or list all upcoming events.

ldap hack joomla 1.02
Modified ldap hack version 9 for joomla

Attend Events
Atend Events is a fork of the Events Session component http://mamboforge.net/projects/eventssessions/ created by Tony Blair

greenBILL
a billing component for joomla

mod_include
A very short module whose only purpose is to built a module which includes a PHP/HTML file. Usefull to display ads, or pages coming from previous site. Param : file to be included.

E Knowledge Management
To manage the knowledge happen in workplace

com_securityimages
Security Images or CAPTCHA for Joomla Ever been to a site where you had to register and the registration form required that you type in the same phrase that is found in a hard-to-read image? Joomla has now this possibility thanks to my component com_securityimages. CAPTCHA definition: A captcha (an acronym for “completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart”) is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to determine whether or not the user is human. The term was coined in 2000 by Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, and Nicholas J. Hopper of Carnegie Mellon University, and John Langford of IBM. A common type of captcha requires that the user type the letters of a distorted and/or obscured sequence of letters or digits that appears on the screen.

JoomlaDesk
A helpdesk component, capible of creating tickets, email allert, user learing, help database, main work list, personal work list, overvieuws, prioratising, planning and manny more. It was for mambo (private) and now i am upgrading it and porting to joomla (public)

PCM
Personal Content Manager – Allows Admin to define in Backend in what Sections/Categories an Editor is allowed to write articles. In Frontend component the Editor only can edit the Content written by him.

Z Weather
This component and module combination displays weather from U.S. cities using data provided by the National Weather Service. Current conditions, forecasts and weather alerts are supported for multiple locations. Z Weather uses data from the National Weather Service, which means you can provide accurate weather information on your Joomla web site with no advertising from a commercial weather provider. A demo of the component and module can be seen at http://www.zcontent.net . The latest release is available for download in the File Releases section.

LDAP Tools
LDAP tools contains a variety of useful items (mambots and components) for the LDAP environment, tested in a Novell eDirectory environment. It contains: – LDAP User Synchronization – LDAP User Authentication – LDAP Single Sign On

Google SiteMap
Google SiteMap Component for Joomla

EZ Store
A simple ecommerce solution for online sellers.

Google Sitemap Generator
A full backend Admin component which generates the XML file for Google Sitemap. Further a Module will be released which will generate the XML automatically on a specified time and if possible Google will be infomed

IMAP
IMAP email Client for joomla!

On This Day in History
This is a component and module that will allow a Joomla site to display what happened on this day in history text. The module will print a brief description and allow a clickthrough to the component giving more detailed information.

jDonations
Joomla Donations module, a Paypal IPN donation solution for the Joomla! Content Management System.

Children Submenu
I have created a small module that will display an item’s children (as determined by the mainmenu) in a submenu of its own. If a child from the submenu is clicked on, this module will check if the that item has children as well and will display the children of the child and so on… I was finding that I was having to create so many submenus with the menu manager and it wasnt dynamic what-so-ever. I wanted to be able to click on an item, and if the item had immediate children, show those children in a seperate menu dynamilcally. Hope this helps others.

DS-Syndicate
DS-Syndicate is a replacement of the standard Syndicate module of Joomla. It contains the RSS formats: 0.91, 1.0, 2.0, OPML and Atom 0.3. Some Features:Only Frontpage items or all items, Create a feed per category, Multiple feeds possible, Different formats RSS, OPML, ATOM, Add a picture to the feed, Statistics http://www.JoomlaFun.com/ is the place for support.

livesupport
Install a live support chat to your website, is easy, this is the second version, all the code in english and work with JavaScript+XMLHttpRequest+PHP, and multilanguage.

Image of the Day
A module to display an image of the DAY OR an image of the WEEK. Admin parameters for: image folder, image type, mode of operation, link, sizing, default image, alt text, module class suffix and Debug Mode to show image path & url being called by your settings.

Calendar
Calendar gives your visitor the possibility to view the events the site manages. Day/Month/Year list views are supported. An administrator can define events.

phpbb
phpBB modificated to work within joomla. Please check www.tim-online.nl/redirect.php?forum for support questions

VirtueMart
The complete Shopping Mall Solution for the Content Management System Joomla!. It is already used by thousands of storeowners. It can also be used as a Catalogue. Its powerful Administration Tool can handle an unlimited number of Categories, Products, Orders, Customers..

WebAmoeba Ticket System
The WebAmoeba Ticket System is a help ticket support system component for Mambo and Joomla. For more information see http://www.webamoeba.co.uk

Jobline
Jobline is a component to let clients publish job postings on your website.

CiviCRM
CiviCRM is a Constituent Relationship Management System for Joomla! (and other CMS)

RSGallery2
Based on the original RSGallery, RSGallery2 aims to be the easiest to use and most functional photo and image gallery available for Joomla!

Google Site Search
Description: “Google Site Search” is a module for Joomla that enables you to search your site by using the Google-Site-Search feature. The classic search is also implemented. There are different options to choose like the background-color and others. It supports GoogleAdsense.

AJAX Shoutbox
This Joomla module adds live chat functionality to your Joomla site. Your visitors can chat with eachother right in your website without refreshing their browsers. It’s almost like chatting on an instant messenging network! And it’s all powered by AJAX, a hot new old technology that powers things like Gmail, Google Maps, and other brilliant web apps. Now, you can get a piece of all this in your own site.

Gallery2 Bridge
Bridge Component to Embed Gallery2 into Joomla. The Main development and Support is given at http://opensource.4theweb.nl

JUICE
Joomla User Import ComponEnt allows a site administrator to import usernames, passwords, and email addresses into Joomla’s user manager from a properly formated CSV text file.

josCommerce
josCommerce is a port of mosCommerce (developed by http://www.byrgius.com) which was orignially designed to port osCommerce to Mambo 4.5.2. The initial goal of this project is to create a port of osCommerce for Joomla! (relying heavily upon the mosCommerce code developed by Byrgius). Longer range goals will strive to modularize josCommerce (at the cost of backward/forward compatability with osCommerce) and in doing so fully separate Presentation from Business logic and provide more robust integration within the Joomla! framework. This site is a demo of the current release candidate v1.0.1 It is intended to serve as a testing bed for those interested in kicking the tires. Those interested in downloading this code are encouraged to visit the forge at http://developer.joomla.org/sf/sfmain/do/viewProject/projects.joscommerce and check it out of the subversion repository – located in the branches directory under 1.0.1. – at http://scm.joomla.org/svn/repos/joscommerce/branches/release_1.0.1 josCommerce uses the major.minor.micro (eg. 0.18.2) release numbering convention. Major – Indicates a very large change in the core package. Rewrites or major milestones. Minor – Significant amount of feature addition/modification. Micro – Usually bug fixes or minor features

School
This component shows student classroom allocations, personal details of students (including parents and contact stuff), marks, lessons and more.

Appointment Scheduler
A multi-department and multi-person (or resource) scheduling component that is highly flexible. Each appointment department (category) can use customized appointment fields. Provides an Outlook-like look and feel.

Community Builder
Community Builder suite extends the Joomla! user management system. Key features: extra fields in profile, enhanced registration workflows, user lists, admin defined tabs, image upload, front-end workflow management, integration with other components, etc.

Summary

Time spent in article: 120 minutes
Time left for project: 385 minutes
Goals accomplished:

• Joomla Core is downloaded
• I have enough extra components to compare to each other, possibly enough to finih the project

Ok, I have my machine ready to go.. er, well, as ready as it will ever be. This machine was previously known as a Win98/2000 lab machine, rocking out a 400mhz P3, 256MB of ramdom memory modules I stuffed in there, an aenemic 4.3GB hard drive, a 10/100 NIC (with BNC connector!) a 54x CD drive (seems like the best part of the machine) and a 4MB video card (woo!).

It should be enough to handle web server duties, but since this machine is free and represents what most people probably have laying around (at least). I’ll stick with it, even though I suspect it most likely is a little underpowered.

CD ISO burned to disk, disk in drive, machine on.

BIOS

Had to change the machine to boot from CD before C. Not that I didn’t have a touch of nostalgia seeing the Windows 2000 splash screen…or was that nausea?

Install

I chose to install the base installaton, since this isn’t a workstation.
Language > English, US. Keyboard: US

While it’s installing, time to go look into what needs to be done to turn this Linux server into a LAMP! Google to the rescue – found this forum posting by ‘machiner’ over at ubuntuforums.org entitled ‘This may help newbies – Quick LAMP howto – Ubuntu’. It sounds like a pain, and is written for a previous version of Ubuntu. I’ll read this while the machine finishes installing, and use it if the default installers in Ubuntu don’t work.

hostname > intranet

erase hda1 (format hard drive and use default partitions) > yes > yes

[waiting]

D’oh! – drive failure! trying another 4.3GB drive with default Ubuntu install……OK

OK, so while that finishes loading (on a good hard drive), I’ll go looking for the Joomla Components and Modules that I want to use, in addition to the defaults that come with Joomla. It’s not hard to find these via google or the Joomla Developer SourceForge, and most of them are released under the GPL.

Summary

Time spent in article: 60 (ouch!)
Time spent on project: 505
Goals accomplished:

• Installed Operating system – Ubuntu Linux 5.10 ‘Breezy Badger’

OK, so while the Ubuntu CD is still downloading (using my open-source Firefox browser, of course), I need to find an open-source Content Management System (CMS) that has a frontend, an administrative backend, and enough community support and add-on modules that I’ll be able to do everything I want to do. There are a lot of these out there, and a lot of great sites to demo a lot of these CMSs.

I’m going to choose Joomla, since I’ve used Mambo before, and I know there’s literally thousands of modules that plug in to Mambo/Joomla. What’s up with the name? Joomla used to be called Mambo, and there was some debate or something that Mambo wasn’t always going to be 100% open-source, so all the developers left and made their own CMS called Joomla. Joomla 1.0 was basically exactly the same as Mambo 4.5.2, but with a few extras that had been in development before the split.

What the… not a good sign here… the Joomla website is having some problems. Seems like a bad omen. We’ll find out, no turning back now… I managed to find a copy of Joomla 1.0.7 on Softpedia‘s website, downloading the 2.4MB file now…

ISO Imaging

I just realized that I have no way of getting my Ubuntu Install CD onto an actual CD. Right now I am 17% away from having it downloaded! Luckily, I’ve used a program before for Windows XP called ISO Recorder, and it’s free. Whew! A quick download, and I’m ready to burn that CD…when it gets done downloading.

Summary

Time spent in this article: 15 minutes
Time remaining for project: 565 minutes
Goals accomplished:

• Content Management System found
• ISO imaging program found (unplanned)

OK, so before I do anything, I need a machine to build on. It needs to be in the DMZ, so both external and internal computers can find it. That means assigning it a static IP address, which I can look into while the OS is loading.

I make the computer name ‘intranet’, and people who are in my xyzdomain.org network will be able to hit the server in their web browser at intranet.xyzdomain.org.

For people outside my organization, I need to register a domain name so that when someone surfs to extranet.xyzdomain.org, it will hit port 80 on my org’s firewall, and get forwarded to the web server internally. Luckily, we already have a domain name, so registering the ‘extranet’ subdomain to point to the firewall (along with the default ‘www’ subdomain) is a simple matter. I’ll do all of the registration work while I load the OS on the machine.

The Operating System

My time is short, so I need something that comes ready as a web server out of the box. Since I need all open-source web management components, it’s almost a no-brainer to go for a LAMP server, that is, Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP. Just need to find a Linux Distribution that comes with LAMP pre-installed. Since that narrows it down to a few hundred distributions, I’ll go with one I’ve used before: Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a great Linux distribution to start using as a workstation, we’ll see how well it does as a web server. It’s ease of LAMP-component installation is mostly what I’m interested in.

While downloading the Ubuntu x86 Install CD (617MB!), I’ll register the external subdomain and prep one of the computers I have lying around with the newest used power supply, max memory and newest used hard drives I have. After that, I’ll look far a baseline Content Management system that will form the core framework of my website.

Summary

Time Spent in this article: 20 minutes
Time remaining for project: 580 minutes
Goals accomplished in this article:

• Prepared for external and internal access to future machine
• Found solution for OS, Web Server and Web Application support
• Readied machine for implementation

In the same sense, for someone as myself who has to be a jack of many trades (NetAdmin, TechSupport, WebDesign, HelpDesk, etc.), I don’t have a lot of time to develop anything substantial as far as web applications are concerned. The bad part, though, is that I see an enormous potential for web applications at my organization.

Some of this potential I see comes from the fact that I’m always looking to bring the best tools to the job, and enjoy using communications tools to utilize my organization’s strong points. I also end up finding great tools while searching for others. Even if you don’t have a need for a web application or multiple applications in your organization, just the process of seeing what’s out there may just get the wheels turning to something that is really out of this world!

In the next few postings, I will be commenting as I build an Extranet/Intranet system for my organization. Here will be the requirements for this project, possibly subject to review as I go along. I recommend these criteria for anyone interested in rapid web development:

• All portions of the Extranet/Intranet must be as close as possible to the organization’s current business model. Additional tools that fit the organization’s business model, but are not currently used, are encouraged
• All portions of the Extranet/Intranet must be at a usability level equal to the least-qualified of its users
• All software/web applicaions used in the development of the project must be either Open Source, in an established Open Format or 100% free to anyone who would like to use it. This includes everything from the Operating System on the server to database management to web content services to FTP tools, etc. This is done to keep material costs as low as possible.
• All portions of the Extranet/Intranet must support Single Sign-On (SSO)
• The maximum development time on this project will be no more than 2 weeks (10 business days) and for no more than 60 minutes per day (a maximum of 600 minutes, or 10 hours total development time). The Extranet/Intranet project must be in the production environment with the users trained on how to use it at the end of the time limit. (With the $30/hour I usually charge people for web development on my own time, this puts the entire solution cost at $450 + material costs)

Seems a little crazy now that I look at it. Oh, and one final thing: I’m going to be doing this for real. I manage a small school district with 3 campuses on a WAN. This will be a production-grade Extranet/Intranet for an educational environment. Unfortunately for me, the rules listed above were for a corporate Extranet/Intranet, but that just covers my office staff. I’ll have to account for teachers, parents and students.

Might run out of time before I can customize anything. Let’s find out…

One thing that really struck me was the potential for a “PMA” device to be an anti-corruption device. I thought I’d hash out a quick plan for one:

• A waterproof enclosure like an iPod mini, but a smaller LCD can be substituted for our purposes.
• With the smaller LCD, an embedded 802.11n (once it comes out) antenna could be installed in the device, to provide near-constant (theoretical) 540 Mbit/s wireless access.
• A mic-in jack, for a lapel-microphone.
• A fuel cell battery, not unlike the ones currently in development for mobile phones.
• A one-inch 20GB Hitachi microdrive, the same size as the iPod mini.

Basically, the idea would be to have this voice recorder running embedded Linux. The device could be set to turn on when the user was ‘on the clock’, and turn off when they weren’t. Audio would be recorded to the device, and would be sent via encrypted VPN over the 802.11n network at regular intervals, say, in 5-minute ‘chunks’

Of course, the device would have to be able to transmit using only government-approved VPN encryption standards, and there would be a secure installation on the other side of the VPN connection that would be storing these transcripts.

This solution might also be good for people who want to cover themselves if they are in high-liability situations, such as celebrities, lawyers, etc. In addition, with the added ability to triangulate on the device via 802.11n, (methods already exist for tracing it’s geographical location any time it is online) this device could be used to ensure probation, house arrest, and other law enforcement. The signals could also be tagged with the geographic location when they are sent at the 5-minute intervals, so that the audio could be searchable by location. (You could call up all of your activity when you were at “XYZ corporation’s” main office, for example)

The hard drive space also opens the device up for video capturing also, which could be helpful to surgeons, etc. Depending on the video transmission rate, a Bluetooth-enabled earpiece with video and audio inputs could be made. This brings a host of other problems, however, as the signals would have to be sent encrypted via Bluetooth to the base unit, and powering audio, video and encryption in a small device could prove challenging. However, this would open up a world of possibility! With a video-compliant version of Riya (for example), you would be able to search on “Grandma”, and replay every moment you shared with her, without having to manually go back and tag the video. Or possibly search for “XYZ Contract”, and replay that verbal contract that you now need evidence of…

The device should probably be accessible via a Mini-B USB 2.0 or preferably a 9-pin FireWire 800 for firmware upgrades and programming. It should be stressed, however, that the ability to lock out the user from tampering should be preserved to enable the device to be able to perform as an ‘honesty check’ when used with felons or government employees.

Any other earth-changing ideas? Let’s hear them!

I post this speech not as a criticism of our current government, but as a criticism of the control it has allowed itself to fall under, and the losses, both physical and ideological, which we have suffered.

—–

So — in this my last good night to you as your President — I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.

You and I — my fellow citizens — need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation’s great goals.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America’s prayerful and continuing aspiration:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.

I post this speech not as a criticism of our current government, but as a criticism of the control it has allowed itself to fall under, and the losses, both physical and ideological, which we have suffered.

—–

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war — as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years — I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.

I post this speech not as a criticism of our current government, but as a criticism of the control it has allowed itself to fall under, and the losses, both physical and ideological, which we have suffered.

—–

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

I post this speech not as a criticism of our current government, but as a criticism of the control it has allowed itself to fall under, and the losses, both physical and ideological, which we have suffered.

—–
(emphasis mine)

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

I post this speech not as a criticism of our current government, but as a criticism of the control it has allowed itself to fall under, and the losses, both physical and ideological, which we have suffered.

—–

Throughout America’s adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology — global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle — with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research — these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs — balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage — balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.

The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.

I post this speech not as a criticism of our current government, but as a criticism of the control it has allowed itself to fall under, and the losses, both physical and ideological, which we have suffered.

—–

We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America’s leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

I post this speech not as a criticism of our current government, but as a criticism of the control it has allowed itself to fall under, and the losses, both physical and ideological, which we have suffered.

—–

My fellow Americans:

Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.

My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.

In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.

I have chosen to go back to this era, as it seems to be ‘where it all went wrong’ in modern America. You will never hear these types of warnings again, as it seems that corporate America has finally purchased its way to the top. In reality, it is my sincere hope that this speech inspires any readers of this blog to stand up for what is right, for what they believe in, and to refuse to let the power of money over-run your own sense of morality.

The fears of President Eisenhower to date have been, and are currently being realized. When asking yourself what happened to the United States of the Moon missions, Norman Rockwell, apple pie, etc., consider this speech as it was in 1961: a warning of what was to come.

I post this speech not as a criticism of our current government, but as a criticism of the control it has allowed itself to fall under, and the losses, both physical and ideological, which we have suffered.

I’ve thought up a basic roadmap, but need other’s comments to fine-tune it. Here’s what I came up with so far:

Knowledge
Otherwise known as ‘book smarts’ Being knowledgeable is something to can attain experience or study. Being knowledgeable seems to be useless without the intelligence to know what to do with all of that information, except for on Jeopardy.

Intelligence
Intelligence seems to be inherent in a person, though there seems to be ways to increase one’s intelligence. Intelligence seems to be the ability to know what to do, even if you don’t know how. Suprisingly, intelligence seems to have the ability to grow via the brains situational profiling.

dependencies on each other
It seems that knowledge is the useless storage of information without intelligence. Intelligence is the inability to accomplish recognizable goals without knowledge.

Conclusion
It seems that the ideal environment for making one’s self more “intelligent”, then, is to start with a basic library of knowledge to work with, and to be placed in enough situations where your mind becomes efficient in searching through that knowledge and coming up with the best solution to a given situation.

Example
There are two venture capitalist investors.

The first has seven years of training, and seven years of practice. After 14 years, the first investor is able to recognize good investments in the area of his expertise, and to be successful.

The second investor has 14 years of training, but no practice. Although the second investor is more knowledgeable about investing, he/she has a hard time applying that knowledge practically since he/she can’t recognize what situation they are in.

Something interesting happens as time goes on, however. At this point, the first investor is able to leverage 100% of their knowledge at year 14, and will continue to do so until year 21. The second investor can leverage 0% at year 14, and perhaps 100% at year 21. In short, the second investor could possible be twice as good as the first, but perhaps take 1/3 (133%) more time to get there. In this respect, it seems as if the second investor has an advantage.

However, as we all know, the learning process doesn’t stop at the end of the knowledge-gathering. The use of knowledge via intelligence opens up more opportunities for knowledge, and this continues in cycle.

If we apply this principle to our example, the first investor is at 100% knowledge in year 7. As they approach year 14, they approach 100% intelligence, as they learn how to leverage that knowledge. Through years 7-14, however, this process opens them up to more knowledge-gaining opportunities, and they may, perhaps, be at 200% of their original knowledge, and since they were utilizing this knowledge along the way, at full efficiency. Therefore, the first investor would arrive at year 14 with the ability to make use of all 14 year’s work of knowledge.

This is in contrast to the second investor who arrives at year 14 at a much lower efficiency, as they are only able to utilize the intelligence naturally inherent, not learned.

What does it all mean?
It seems like this makes the case for not only a broad-spectrum, short-duration education (such as a 4-year liberal-arts, or ‘something of everything’ education) to facilitate multi-situational effectiveness. In addition, it also seems that the stockpiling of knowledge needs to be weighed against the cost of not using the majority of it, as that would have been time better spent a.) efficiently using the knowledge you have, and b.) opening opportunities for knowledge that is more relevant to current situations.

Help me out here, and post your insights!

Got into a good discussion, wanted to post my comment on my own blog as well.

On the topic of surveys of end user satisfaction with software products:

Overall, I haven’t put too much weight on these types of surveys. What I WOULD be interested in is a survey of end users who have used multiple email systems, and their preference.

It seems like Notes would blow others out of the water, if the end users knew what they were missing. But often they don’t. A perfect example of this is a sametime rollout I was involved in for a small company of about 400 users. No-one understood why we were rolling it out, they were satisfied with what they had. Two months later, we were averaging 10,000 sametime conversations per month, 80% of them business related. About 6 months later, we had a minor error with the server’s hardware, and you’d better believe people missed it.

I think of it like this – people using an inferior application or others are like workers with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. The tools allow them to do more work more quickly, and they are happy with what they have. Then you give them the dump truck and backhoe, which is a better app. Not only can they continue doing the same old thing, but they have the tools to accomplish much more.

The only dependants are the user’s desire to learn how to use their new tools effectively, and the ‘drive factor’. By ‘drive factor’, I mean the choice the user has to make whether to continue putting forward the same amount of effort with the new tools and accomplish more, or accomplish the same goals with less effort.

I think the latter happens a little too much, and this seems to me to be some of the source of the ‘Notes is too complicated’ argument. Not that I think the Notes UI is complicated, I think it is very intuitive. But I think the real argument some of these people are making is, ‘Notes is too complicated…because I don’t need such a capable tool to accomplish the lower goals I have set for myself’. For end users, this is a management problem, but it’s not hard to see this attitude in management, developers, etc.

Motoring – Hybrid eCycle is fun and super-eConomical:

Motor: Air-cooled two-stroke diesel twin.
Capacity: 125cc.
Power: 7.5kW. (10 hp)
Induction: Parker Aerospace Macrospray injectors.
Ignition: Compression.
Starting: Electric.
Transmission: 2-speed constant mesh with final drive by belt.
Suspension: 48mm FAR inverted cartridge forks at front, Penske Racing hydraulic shock absorber at rear.
Brakes: 298mm (11.73 inches) disc with four-pot opposed piston Grimeca calliper at front, 216mm (8.5 inches) disc with single-piston Grimeca calliper at rear.
Tyres: Front: 110/70-17 tubeless. Rear: 130/70-17 tubeless.
Wheelbase: 1321mm. (52 inches)
Seat height: 762mm. (30 inches)
Dry weight: 132kg. (291 pounds)

Motor: Rare Earth Magnet
Power: 15 Peak Horsepower
Top Speed: 45 to 65 mph (adjustable)
Range: 20 to 40 miles (adjustable)
Brakes: Dual Hydraulic Disks
Charge Time: 3.5 hours

What’s nice about this is that you can actually buy one of these, unlike the eCycle, from what I have found. The downside (?) is that it’s entirely electric, so it’s range is limited by who will let you plug in.

However, with its range, it remains a viable solution for commuters or weekend fun, but probably wouldn’t be too good on the interstate highways, with a max speed of 65 mph.

Still, for a $7000 bike, not bad performance at all.

Nice. The hybrid motorcycle. Not exactly the cargo room I need, but the 180 mpg sounds nice! Top speed of 80 mph and 0-60 in 6 seconds is also nice.

Now they just need to put out an update on production, it’s been 8 months or so since they put out the press release.

32-inch diagonal
4:3 aspect ratio
24 inches wide
18 inches tall
432 square inches
(also 163 pounds. That doesn’t have to do with anything, it’s just fun to point out how ludicrous moving it around is…)

So if I wanted the same amount of screen space (square inches) in a 16:9 TV, I would have to do the following:
31.8-inch diagonal
27.7 inches wide
15.6 inches tall
432 square inches

So now that we’re viewing the signal from Comcast in widescreen mode, I can see more of the signal being sent to me. In the past, where my TV would have been cutting off the sides of the signal to show it in 4:3, it now shows the entire signal being sent in its native 16:9.

But wait! Something’s wrong here. If I watch a DVD on both TV’s, it’s true that I get to see more of the picture with the widescreen (1.85 inches on either side). But because this is 16:9, my “32 inch” 16:9 TV displays people in the movie 2.4 inches shorter! In effect, a person on my 16:9 TV is the same size as on a “26 inch” 4:3 TV. I gained extra picture on the sides of the 16:9, but the actual size of what’s being displayed gets smaller on a 16:9 if you compare the 16:9 and 4:3 “32 inch” TV’s next to each other.

Well that just won’t do. I want to keep the same image size I’m used to, but just get the extra inches on the sides that I’ve been missing. In order to replace my 30″ Sony and keep the same image size, but add the extra picture on the sides, I would have to look into a 16:9 TV with the following specs:

36.7 inch diagonal
32 inches wide
18 inches tall
576 square inches

Whoa! A “36.7 inch” TV? Yep, if I wan to keep the picture I am used to, but get the benefit of the extra picture on the sides, that’s what I’m looking at. And that’s what you should be looking at if you’re thinking of switching from a 4:3 TV to a 16:9. So what if you don’t have a 30″ TV? Well, the following chart should help you out:

So what’s the bottom line? Well, it just so happens to work out that no matter what size diagonal your 4:3 TV is, if you take the inches diagonal of the 4:3 (30″, for example) and multiply it by 1.2238, the number you get will be the size diagonally that you will need in your 16:9 so that you have the same height screen as your 4:3.

Here is the excel sheet to prove it!

OLD 4:3 TV NEW 16:9 TV

w h d w h d inches diag diff % diag difference
04.0 03.0 05 16.0 9.0 18.4
16.0 12.0 20 21.3 12.0 24.5 4.5 22.38373%
17.6 13.2 22 23.5 13.2 26.9 4.9 22.38373%
19.2 14.4 24 25.6 14.4 29.4 5.4 22.38373%
20.8 15.6 26 27.7 15.6 31.8 5.8 22.38373%
22.4 16.8 28 29.9 16.8 34.3 6.3 22.38373%
24.0 18.0 30 32.0 18.0 36.7 6.7 22.38373%
25.6 19.2 32 34.1 19.2 39.2 7.2 22.38373%
27.2 20.4 34 36.3 20.4 41.6 7.6 22.38373%
28.8 21.6 36 38.4 21.6 44.1 8.1 22.38373%
30.4 22.8 38 40.5 22.8 46.5 8.5 22.38373%
32.0 24.0 40 42.7 24.0 49.0 9.0 22.38373%
33.6 25.2 42 44.8 25.2 51.4 9.4 22.38373%
35.2 26.4 44 46.9 26.4 53.8 9.8 22.38373%
36.8 27.6 46 49.1 27.6 56.3 10.3 22.38373%
38.4 28.8 48 51.2 28.8 58.7 10.7 22.38373%
40.0 30.0 50 53.3 30.0 61.2 11.2 22.38373%

I don’t like having credit card debt, but giving a good vacation to the wife/girlfriend, trying to not have a disappointing Christmas, or buying furniture for that new house usually forces most people to put some amount on the credit cards. Since the credit card companys want you to stay in debt, and have made an entire industry out of doing just that, it’s difficult to get out from under that stress.

I have an idea. Haven’t tried it yet myself, but I wanted to open it to the blogosphere and get some feedback, because technically it makes sense… (I think)
Debt (credit cards, loans, bills) is what you owe people, this is negative. Assets (a car you have paid off, stuff you can sell on eBay, money) are what you use to get rid of debt (anti-debt?), which is positive.

Here’s the interesting thing:

The positives can have interest rates (stock market, savings account), but this interest rate is usually small, as in 3% or lower small.

The negatives have larger interest rates, but the range is much larger, from 0% on a new car to 30%+ on a credit card.

There’s nothing we can do about the positive interest rates. We can get better real estate or invest in riskier stocks to try and get more in interest, but we’ll never get to a 30%+ gain per year.

So let’s try to get rid of the high-percentage negative stuff. I’ve already talked about how to get credit card payments cut in half with one phone call, so let’s say out bad interest is in the range of 0%-15%.

An optomistic good interest range is in 5-10%/year, for stocks, real estate, etc. Yes, there are exceptions, but this is an example. Let’s say we’re gaining 10%/year on a $200K house, and 10%/year on $30K of investments. That means our money is making us about $23,000 per year.

However, in the bad interest group, we have 13% on the $5000 of credit card bills, 8% on the $200K mortgage, and depreciation on the paid-off car, currently worth $10K. That means our stuff is costing us $22650/year.

Overall, our investment gains are being eaten up by our debt interest, so here’s the plan: make the debt’s appetite smaller.

Step 1: sell the car.
It’s going to need maybe a thousand over the next year to keep running properly, compared to a new car? It’s worth 1/3 of what it was when you bought it? It has 60K miles on it? ditch it, we’ll get another one in a bit. in the meantime, borrow a car if you can, or take public transit for the next month while we:

step 2: use the car money to pay off the credit cards
these cards are going to be the end of you. Pay off all the cards, but don’t close the accounts. Just keep paying the $3 monthly fee to keep them open. Credit cards debt goes away, and (after a motnh or two) your credit score skyrockets (once your low balances are reported), which will come in handy next:

step 3: refinance?
now that you have a great credit score, see if you qualify for a lower interest rate on your mortgage. Even 1% can make a world of difference, in this case, about $2000/year. Take your mortgage savings (in this case, maybe about $165/month) and put it towards:

step 4: get a used car
Your old car was used, so you don’t need a new one. besides, the chances are that you can go find a car exactly like yours with half the miles. The good part is that most of a car’s depreciation is in the first few years, so a 2-year-old car will have depreciated to 50% of its original value, but will have only 30K miles, compared to your old car that had 60K miles and was worth 40% of what it was when you bought it. That difference of 10% value only adds up to $2000 on a $20K car, so don’t worry about the cost difference. With your new high credit score, you can get a good car loan, which your mortgage savings help pay for. You can even use any extra money left over from paying off your credit cards to lower the cost of the car, and therefore, the monthly cost. While you’re at it, collect some of that crap that yu haven’t used in years and put it on eBay. After all, you’re not using it, and it’s not going to get more valuable just lying there in your moldy basement.

Your budget for the new (used) car is this: if you are getting a 48-month loan, for example, the total cost of the car + total interest paid (minus savings on mortgage over this period of time)has to be lower than the total cost of paying off your credit cards in 48 months. If the car costs more per month than it would have cost per month to pay off the credit cards in 48 months, you have to find a cheaper car, otherwise there was no sense in doing all of this work, all you did was move your debt from credit cards to a car. (but you did raise your credit score, so a minor kudos to you)

step 5: (optional)
you may want to call it quits right here, but you may want to consider taking what you would have paid to pay off your credit cards over 48 months, and subtracting your step 4 cost (cost of used car over 48 months minus mortgage savings). If this number comes out positive, say, $150/month, that means all of this work has not only paid off your cards and gotten you a better credit score, but lessened your monthly debt. Feel free to put that money towards the house, or more likely, towards that investment fund you had that was making 10%/year.

The end result:

the good

• you have no (or lower) credit card debt
• you have a better credit score
• you have a lower mortgage payment
• you have a newer car with less miles, and possibly still under warranty
• you are putting more into your investment account

the not-so-good

• you had to get rid of your car. get over it.
• your new car might have more problems than the last. make sure it has some kind of warranty for the next few years.
• you had to be without a car while you waited for your credit score to rise. yeah, that kinda sucked.
• you have car payments. yeah, before you didn’t have car payments or credit card payments. That’s because you weren’t paying off your credit cards, which put you in this mess in the first place. So you tell me, car payments at maybe 5%, or credit card payments at 30%?

If you’ve got any ideas or anything to add, please comment!

Well, the credit card companies are now going to be forced to tell people how long it will take to pay off their cards. That will be a suprise to a lot of people, because credit card companies in the past have just charged what they call the ‘minimum’. What the ‘minimum’ usually covers is just the interest for that month, and the finance charges, if any. This is meant to ensure that you remain a source of income for them, while supplying them with cash on a regular basis. In effect, you will never pay off your debt, you’re just paying rent on it until you die.

In addition to telling you how badly you’re being taken for your money, the government is now requiring that credit card companies try to help their cardholders get out of debt. So now the credit card companies are going to be forced to charge you not only for this month’s interest and finance charges, but also a percentage of the money you owe. The end result is that your monthly payments will go up, most likely between 1.5 to 2 ties what they are now. The good side is that you’ll be forced to stop playing the credit card company’s game…that is, if you don’t go bankrupt first.