Google Redefines GPS Navigation Landscape: Google Maps Navigation For Android 2.0

If you weren’t sure about switching to an Android phone in the near future, this might put you over the edge. Google Maps Navigation is an absolutely killer app. And it is only available for Android 2.0 phones.

Today is Droid day, and for the most part Google is taking a backseat and letting their partners get most of the attention. But Droid is the first Android phone to run Android 2.0, and Google Maps Navigation is clearly the early trophy app for those devices.

Google Maps already has 50 million active users across various mobile phones, says Google. But what users have today isn’t even close to the new Navigation product.

First off, it’s connected, which puts it ahead of all but a tiny percentage of in-car navigation systems which have no Internet connectivity (Dash is a notable exception).

The application is also completely free. So all those paid navigation apps (Navigon, TomTom, CoPilot, MapQuest, GoKivo and Sygic Mobile) are at an immediate disadvantage.

But even if Google charged for this app, it would still win hands down. The features include easy search (no need for address), voice search, traffic information (from data sources and crowd sourced from app), and street view close up pictures when you get near your destination. And the car dock mode gives bigger, simpler icons and auto-voice mode (see video):

Search in plain English. No need to know the address. You can type a business name (e.g. “starbucks”) or even a kind of a business (e.g. “thai restaurant”), just like you would on Google.

Search by voice. Speak your destination instead of typing (English only): “Navigate to the de Young Museum in San Francisco”.

Traffic view. An on-screen indicator glows green, yellow, or red based on the current traffic conditions along your route. A single touch on the indicator toggles a traffic view that shows the traffic ahead.

Search along route. Search for any kind of business along your route, or turn on popular layers such as gas stations, restaurants, or parking.

Satellite view. View your route overlaid on 3D satellite views with Google’s high-resolution aerial imagery.

Street View. Visualize turns overlaid on Google’s Street View imagery. Navigation automatically switches to Street View as you approach your destination.

Car dock mode. For certain devices, placing your phone in a car dock activates a special mode that makes it easy to use your device at arm’s length.

Here’s Navigation in the Droid dock, followed by an image gallery for the app:

Video Demo Of Google Maps Navigation

Screenshot Gallery Of Google Maps Navigation

The Chinese Internet: Why the "Copy Cats" Win

At first blush, it seems like Song Li is one of those stereotypical Chinese Web entrepreneurs. The kind who rips off successful US sites and hopes operating in the world’s largest consumer Internet market will magically create a successful company. After all, he made a good bit of money investing in ChinaHR—a job board site that sold to Monster.com for more than $200 million over two deals –  and right now he operates Digu.com, a Twitter-clone, and Zhenai.com an online dating site that could be the Chinese Match.com.

But if you dig a little deeper into that dating site, you start to understand how differently Li thinks, and how that thinking reflects an aspect of Chinese consumer Web sites that Westerners frequently miss. Where Chinese Web entrepreneurs shine is in taking an existing business idea – ripping it off, if you like – but then completely rethinking and reinventing that idea’s business model and process. This not only makes the companies more profitable faster, it’s a big reason why home-grown Chinese versions continually beat US companies trying to expand into China.

To a Valley entrepreneur taking someone else’s idea, improving on it and taking all the credit may seem unfair or even unethical. But Google didn’t come up with the search engine and Facebook didn’t come up with a social network. What mattered was execution. Put another way: Sure the Chinese can learn a thing or two about original Web ideas from the Valley, but the Web 2.0 generation can learn a lot about monetization from China.

So what does a Chinese Match.com look like? In Li’s own words, it’s very “practical.” China has a long history of matchmaking so just going online, finding someone you like and messaging them isn’t going to appeal to a lot of the population. The ones who are comfortable with doing that will just use social networks. For those who aren’t, there are already an established off-line alternative in some 200,000 very local, fragmented companies that specialize in matchmaking, charging anywhere between 2,000 and 60,000 RMB per six months—depending on the service. Even in comparatively cheap China, they’ve got pretty high customer acquisition costs thanks to all that brick and mortar and heavy placement of classified ads to keep bringing in new singles.

That’s where the Web should come in, but it’s a bit trickier than that. Here’s the rub in China: The entire consumer Internet—along with “old world” industries like consumer packaged goods and entertainment—are all growing and developing at in parallel. In the US, you could argue social networks are the Web 2.0 answer to the Web 1.0 online dating sites. But how do you build a profitable online dating company in a world where a million MySpace and Facebook rip-offs already exist?

Li has struck an interesting middle ground: A Web site that’s free to join and free to search, with revenues provided by a 350-person strong call center of real-life matchmakers. Once you find someone on the site you like you place a call to a matchmaker to be set up on a date. Using the service costs 3,000 RMB (roughly $430 in dollars) for a six-month subscription—about the low-end of a traditional matchmaking service – and at least one person going on the date has to be a paid subscriber. The matchmaker determines whether both people want to go on the dates, or suggests an alternative date from amongst the site’s 22 million registered members (growing by 40,000 per day). The matchmaker then sets up the date, and then follows up afterwards.

The matchmaker isn’t your friend—she is doing a job. If you suggest someone out of your league, they might, ahem, guide your expectations. “We just want you to be realistic,” Li says. And in the event of a rejection, Li’s team asks a detailed questionnaire to determine exactly why one party didn’t want a second date. And then they call the other party to explain – in precise detail – where they went wrong. “At least you know why and there are certain things you can fix next time,” he says. It may sound brutal but it gives the service clear value. Zhenai.com is profitable, generating about $2 million in revenues per month, growing at double-digit rates month-over-month.

It may also sound like labor-powered, innovation-free China, but it’s not. Li has built a specific CRM system from scratch to walk matchmakers through the matching process and he’s hired a psychologist to help train them on what questions to ask, and what to say to the lovelorn. Li himself has a PHD in finance from Cornell, where he also studied evolutionary biology and molecular genetics.

And then there’s the statistics. Not even Max Levchin—the PayPal and Slide founder who has graphed everything down to his past girlfriends’ bra sizes over time— could match Li’s love for charts and stats. All those brutally honest conversations about why dates succeeded or failed have turned into a trove of statistical data that matchmakers turn into pre-date advice.

A random example? 60% of women with long, straight hair get second dates—even when the data is normalized for Chinese women being more likely to have long, straight hair. The worst group? Short curly hair, which has only a 5% second-date percentage. (Note to self: Good thing I’m married.) “We’re not telling them what to do, we’re just giving them information,” Li says matter-of-factly. Men also like black pantyhose and shiny color-less nail polish. (Li blushes a bit when he tells me about the pantyhose.)

Li has also found that men are universally attracted to women with a .7 hip-to-waist ratio—something he believes is genetically hard-coded as a reproductive trait. “I can’t do anything if a woman is fat, but I can tell her to dress so it shows off her waist,” he says dispassionately. It works both ways, by the way. Women prefer dates wear a suit and because women are predisposed to look for “good providers” Li says he can track for every extra 1,000 RMB you make a month, statistically what percentage more attractive you will be to an average woman. “It’s a math fact,” he says. “I can build you a model.”

It bears noting that Li is not some fratty chauvinist pig. He’s a brainy, bespectacled former derivatives trading executive on Wall Street and Hong Kong, and, yes, he is married. He just likes to break things down into numbers and trends in an obsessive attempt to quantify the seemingly qualitative behavioral patterns of it all. And that makes him the exact opposite of any US consumer site trying to blindly “localize” a site for the Chinese market by just changing the language.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

 

Pro JavaScript - Libraries

By: Michael Kimsal | Posted: Oct 23rd, 2009

Pro JavaScript - Libraries

JavaScript has seen a resurgence in popularity in the last five years.  What was once almost written off in the early 2000s is now a hot skill to have for any web developer.  The landscape has changed a lot over those years, and JavaScript developers have a number of options at their disposal to make development much much easier.

Popular Libraries

Let's face it - writing a bunch of code by hand stinks.  It's time consuming, error prone, and you're often stuck trying to figure out basic problems and making sure things work the same across all the major browsers.  A number of libraries and frameworks have sprung up over the last few years to help ease the pain, and let you focus more on your business logic rather than the plumbing.

jQuery
jQuery is one of the most popular, because it's intended to be lightweight and easy to integrate in to existing projects.  Often with just a couple of lines of code you can achieve some pretty impressive animation and fading effects - perfect for adding that "web 2.0" touch to your website.

YUI
This toolkit from Yahoo! is another popular choice for developers, not least because the weight of Yahoo! is behind it.  This is the code they use on their own sites, and it's been tested, tested and tested some more to ensure a good experience on all the major browsers.  Their documentation is solid, and the community is strong, although not as large as jQuery's.  The biggest drawback to YUI may be its verbosity - it often takes 3 or 4 lines of code to accomplish what jQuery can do in 1 or 2.

Dojo
Dojo is another one with large corporate support - IBM has developers working on and contributing to Dojo, and they use Dojo in some of their own web products.  Like YUI, it's been a victim of verbosity, but also like YUI, Dojo's aims are larger than those of jQuery.  Dojo is one of the few major toolkits to offer internationalization support, for instance.  If you have a major web project, you owe it to yourself to consider Dojo, but prepare for a steep learning curve.

MooTools, Prototype, ExtJS, mochikit, ZK and others are also candidates to consider, although all tend to have smaller communities than the first three listed above.  As new contenders fill various voids in the library space this will undoubtedly become a more crowded market.

More information can be found by visiting the various framework sites, or by visiting http://jsmag.com.

About the Author:

Michael Kimsal publishes resources for web developers, including JSMag for JavaScript professionals, and GroovyMag, for Groovy and Grails developers.

 

Dot Net Programming: New Lease of Life with the Current Demand

By: Tyler Moon | Posted: Oct 26th, 2009

If you're a keen .NET programmer, you are probably aware of what the above title says. Since the birth of multi-core computing, there has been a requirement for parallel-programming architecture. Now, the multi-core computing has developed into the prevailing paradigm in computer architecture since the invention of multi core-processors.

Incidentally, almost every programmer considers Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 as getting distant and out of the way. To prevent its programming market fiasco, recently, Microsoft released the beta versions of .NET Framework 4 and Visual Studio 2010. The major focus fell on .NET 4, yet the labels boasted the arrival of parallel-programming. The question is whether there are any benefits particularly towards performance, on sticking to existing APIs? Go through to get the answer of the question.

.NET 4's Multi-Core processing ability:

Primarily, the MSDN site shows that the parallel extensions in the .NET 4, has been improvised itself to support analogous programming, targeting multi-core computing or distributed computing. The support for the Framework can be divided into four areas like library, LINQ, data structures and diagnostic tools. .NET 4's peers and predecessors are devoid of the multi-core operable ability.

The main criteria like communication and synchronization of sub-tasks were considered as the biggest obstacles in getting a good parallel program performance; But .NET 4's promising parallel library technology enables developers to define simultaneous, asynchronous tasks without having to work with threads, locks, or the thread pool.

Full support for multiple programming languages and compilers:

Apart from VB & C# languages, .NET 4 offers a full support for programming languages like Ironpython, Ironruby, F# and other similar .NET compilers. Other than the 3.5 version of the same model, it encompasses both functional-programming and crucial object-oriented programming.

Dynamic language runtime:

Addition of the dynamic language runtime (DLR) is a blessing for the .NET beginners. Using this new DLR runtime environment, developers can insert a set of services for dynamic languages to the CLR. Apart from that, the DLR makes it simpler to develop dynamic languages and to add dynamic features to statically typed languages. An original System Dynamic name space has been supplemented to the .NET Framework on supporting the DLR and numerous new classes supporting the .NET Framework infrastructure are extra to the System Runtime Compiler Services. Nevertheless, the new DLR provides the following advantages to developers: Developers can use speedy feedback loop which lets them enter diverse statements and execute them to see the results nearly immediately.

It has the ability to support for the top-down and more traditional bottom-up development. You can take the example of a developer using top down approach. He has the ability for call-out functions that are not yet can implement and then add them when required. There are simple refactoring and code modifications in which the Dot Net Programmers do not require to change static type declarations throughout the code.

About the Author:
Tyler Moon is an expert in article writing and internet marketing. She regularly contributes articles on various topics like security services, birth announcements etc.

 

AJAX

AJAX (shorthand for asynchronous JavaScript and XML^[1]) is a group of interrelated web development techniques used on the client-side to create interactive web applications. With AJAX, web applications can retrieve data from the server asynchronously in the background without interfering with the display and behavior of the existing page. The use of AJAX techniques has led to an increase in interactive or dynamic interfaces on web pages^[2][3] and better quality of Web services due to the asynchronous mode. Data is usually retrieved using the XMLHttpRequest object. Despite the name, the use of JavaScript and XML is not actually required, nor do the requests need to be asynchronous.^[4]

History

Techniques for the asynchronous loading of content date back to the mid 1990s. Java applets were introduced in the first version of the Java language in 1995. These allow compiled client-side code to load data asynchronously from the web server after a web page is loaded.^[5] In 1996, Internet Explorer introduced the IFrame element to HTML, which also enables this to be achieved.^[6] In 1999, Microsoft created the XMLHTTP ActiveX control in Internet Explorer 5, which is now supported by Mozilla, Safari and other browsers as the native XMLHttpRequest object.^[6][7] However, this feature only became widely known after being used by Gmail (2004) and Google Maps (2005).^[8]

The term "Ajax" itself was coined in 2005.^[1]Jesse James Garrett thought of the term "AJAX" while in the shower,^[9] when he realized the need for a shorthand term to represent the suite of technologies he was proposing to a client.^{[citation needed]}

On April 5, 2006 the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) released the first draft specification for the object in an attempt to create an official web standard.^[8]

 

(SOA) governance

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) governance is a concept used for activities related to exercising control over services in an SOA. SOA governance can be seen as a subset of IT governance which itself is a subset of Corporate governance. The focus is on those resources to be leveraged for SOA to deliver value to the business. SOA requires a number of IT support processes as well as organizational processes that will also involve the business leaders. SOA needs a solid foundation that is based on standards and includes policies, contracts and service level agreements. The business is expected to be able to use services to build and change the organisations business process quickly. To do so, a degree of granularity in the services available will be required. Consequently an SOA increases the need for good governance as it will help assign decision-making authorities, roles and responsibilities and bring focus to the organisational capabilities needed to be successful.
[edit] Definition

The definitions of SOA governance agree in its purpose of exercising control, but differ in the responsibilities it should have. Some narrow definitions focus on imposing policies and monitoring services, while other definitions use a broader business-oriented perspective.

Anne Thomas Manes defines governance as: “[T]he processes that an enterprise puts in place to ensure that things are done ... in accordance with best practices, architectural principles, government regulations, laws, and other determining factors. SOA governance refers to the processes used to govern adoption and implementation of SOA.” [1]

The specific focus of SOA governance is on the development of services that add value to the business, effective SOA governance must cover the people, processes, and technologies involved in the entire SOA life cycle from business point of view and connectivity and reuse from IT point of view, thus aligning business with IT.

To quote Anne Thomas Manes again: “SOA is about behavior, not something you build or buy. You have to change behavior to make it effective.” [2]

Gartner defines SOA Governance as “Ensuring and validating that assets and artifacts within the architecture are acting as expected and maintaining a certain level of quality.” [3]

ISO 38500 describes a framework with six guiding principles for corporate governance of information technology and a model for directors to govern IT with three main tasks: evaluate, direct and control. ISO 38500 differentiates between "Governance", "Management" and "Control".
[edit] Scope of SOA governance

Some typical governance issues that are likely to emerge in a SOA are:

* Delivering value to the stakeholders: investments are expected to return a benefit to the stakeholders - this is equally true for SOA
* Compliance to standards or laws: IT systems require auditing to prove their compliance to regulations like [Sarbanes-Oxley]. In a SOA, service behavior is often unknown
* Change management: changing a service often has unforeseen consequences as the service consumers are unknown to the service providers. This makes an impact analysis for changing a service more difficult than usual.
* Ensuring quality of services: The flexibility of SOA to add new services requires extra attention for the quality of these services. This concerns both the quality of design and the quality of service. As services often call upon other services, one malfunctioning service can cause damage in many applications.

Some key activities that are often mentioned as being part of SOA governance are:

* Managing the portfolio of services: planning development of new services and updating current services
* Managing the service lifecycle: meant to ensure that updates of services do not disturb current service consumers
* Using policies to restrict behavior: rules can be created that all services need to apply to, to ensure consistency of services
* Monitoring performance of services: because of service composition, the consequences of service downtime or underperformance can be severe. By monitoring service performance and availability, action can be taken instantly when a problem occurs.

tech jokes

computer gender

A language instructor was explaining to her class that French nouns,
unlike their English counterparts, are grammatically designated as
masculine or feminine. Things like "chalk" or "pencil", she described,
would have a gender association. For example: House is feminine - "la"
maison. In English, of course, words are of neutral gender.

Puzzled, one student raised his hand and asked, "What gender is a
computer?"

The teacher wasn't certain which it was, and so divided the class into
two groups and asked them to decide if a computer should be masculine
or feminine.

One group was comprised of the women in the class, and the other of
men. Both groups were asked to give four reasons for their
recommendation.

The men decided that computers should definitely be referred to in the
feminine gender (la) because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic.

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is
incomprehensible to everyone else.

3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later
retrieval.

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending
half your paycheck on accessories for it.

The group of women, however, concluded that computers should be
referred to in the masculine (le) gender because:

1. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.

2. They have a lot of data but are still clueless.

3. They are supposed to help you solve your problems, but half the time
they ARE the problem.

4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that, if you had waited a
little longer, you could have had a better model.

MICROSOFT

Contract programming house for IBM, and primary sustainer of the clone
market. IBM pays MS to write fancy software, then MS tweaks it a little,
slaps the MS logon on it, and sells it to all the clone folks so they can
keep competing with IBM. There is no truth to the rumor that former
Mafioso procure the IBM contracts for MS. All products are given generic
names (Word, Project, Works, Windows, etc.) to (a) confuse everybody
unless (b) the name "Microsoft" is constantly repeated. Made the founder
$300,000,000+ in one day.
_________________________
From: zoinks@netcom.com (Chris Blackwell)

This friday I go some comp tickets to the annual Computer Bowl.
Usually a pretty dry affair, but I just had to share this one with you
all. (This is from memory, so the text may not be 100% verbatim)

The question posed was "What contest, held on the Internet, is
dedicated to examples of wierd, obscure, bizzare and really bad
programming?" (They were referring to the Obfuscated C contest)

For about 30 seconds the participants thought about it, and it was
apparent that nobody knew the answer. Then one of the French
contestants buzzed. His answer - "Microsoft Windows"

The expression on Bill Gates face (he was one of the judges) was
classic.
_________________________
Q: How many Microsoft engineers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: None: they just redefine darkness as the industry standard.
_________________________
As you may be aware Bill Gates is about to launch Microsoft Wife.
After 3 years of marriage, Bill may upgrade to Wife 2.0.
_________________________
From: Sherri.Alashari@Eng.Sun.COM (Sherri Al-Ashari)

Remember that Microsoft joke that someone sent out last week, the one
that says it doesn't take any Microsoft engineers to screw in a light
bult because they'd just redefine darkness to be the standard? Well
it was amazingly prescient.

Seattle's Saturday newspaper carried a front-page story about Bill
Gates' most recent traffic ticket. Rather than pay the $47 fine for
turning left against *three* "No Left Turn" signs, he had his lawyers
challenge the legality of the sign! And not only that sign; they
asked the city to prove it has the legal right to post any traffic
signs!! Can you believe it. The challenge didn't work, but the city
was so slow about proving the signs okay--it's not like they do it
every day--the traffic judge dismissed the ticket.
_________________________
Monday morning God decided that the world had reached the point of no
return. So, he called Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, and Bill Gates to
the gates of heaven. He informed them of his decision and told them
to go back to their people and prepare them for the end of the world
on Thursday.

Boris Yeltsin gets on state television and tells his people that he
has bad news and worse news. After decades of telling the Soviet
citizens that there is no God, he now realizes that he was wrong. He
has seen God with his own eyes. Worse yet, God has decided to destroy
the world and each person needs to prepare for Thursday as each sees
fit.

Bill Clinton calls a press conference and says that he has good news
and bad news. After centuries of telling the US citizens that there
is a God, he has proof that we've been right. He has seen God with
his own eyes. But the bad news is that God has decided to destroy the
world and each person needs to prepare for Thursday as each sees fit.

Bill Gates calls an all-hands meeting. He says that he has wonderful
news and even more wonderful news. God, by calling him to the gates
of heaven with the leaders of the two most powerful nations in the
world, has just confirmed how important Bill Gates really is. The
even better news is that on Thursday, IBM will stop shipping OS/2.
_________________________
Could've been written about Microsoft products:

"If you have a knife 9" in my back, and you pull it out 3", that is
not progress"

--Malcolm X
_________________________
1980's fortune:
Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. The answer is yes.

1990's fortune:
Microsoft is not the answer.
Microsoft is the question.
The answer is "Just Say No!"
_________________________
"My view of Microsoft is that they had two goals in the last 10 years:
to copy the Macintosh and to copy Lotus' success in the applications
business. And they accomplished those goals. Now, they're kind of
lost. I've told Bill [Gates] that I think it's in Microsoft's best
interest if NeXT becomes successful because we'll give him something
to copy for the rest of this decade."

-- Steve Jobs
_________________________
There once was a super Windows NT salesman that travel the world with
a great "can do everything and all" Windows NT demo (but the real
stuff was vaporware). He sold it lonely Windows NT'ers like me and
made lots of money. One day while dashing through the O'Hare Airport
to catch a flight he drop dead of a heart attack.

At the gates of heaven he was judged. He had lived a borderline life
and was given the option of heaven or hell. He could look into the
doors of each and choose. As he opened the door to heaven, wonderful
music harp music played, he saw people floating on clouds and all was
bright and white.

Next he opened the doors to hell and saw nude people drinking beer and
dancing to rock and roll music. Everyone was partying to the max. It
was just like his one year at college.

As He met with his maker again, he said, Heaven is great and
wonderful, but other is more my style. Think carefully he was told
but the other was his wish.

As the doors opened for him the intense heat hit him and he was pulled
in. He stood before the devil and saw pain and sorrow everywhere. He
shouted at the devil, "Where is the party and beer?". The devil
laughed, "that was the demo, this is the real thing!" :)

Bruce
_________________________
Since we can't make it good, we try to make it look good.
- Bill Gates
_________________________
> Can you explain the mysterious popularity of Billy Joel?? Could he be
> the Anti-Christ??

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} No, because there's only one Antichrist, and Bill Gates has applied for
} the post. It's really obvious. Whenever you install a M$ product on a
} computer, all the speed goes straight to hell.
}
} You owe the Oracle a harder question.
_________________________
> Dear Oracle, master of all knowledge, what does UNIX stand for?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Ken Thompson claims that UNIX is "a weak pun on Multics," but this is
} a lie. UNIX is a weak pun on eunuch. Look around you. Are any of
} your male peers ever going to reproduce? And if their significant
} others DO become pregnant-- will you not doubt the identity of the
} father?
}
} UNIX is not all that impressive an operating system. Why, then, is it
} so popular? *UNIX is addictive!* And, just like heroin, the UNIX
} drive quickly displaces the sex drive. (Oh, sure, computer geeks talk
} a lot about wanting to get laid... but do they ever *do* anything
} about it?)
}
} Yet terrible as UNIX addiction is, there are worse fates. If UNIX is
} the heroin of operating systems, then VMS is barbiturate addiction,
} the Mac is MDMA, and MS-DOS is sniffing glue. (Windows is filling
} your sinuses with lucite and letting it set.)
}
} You owe the Oracle a twelve step program.
_________________________
An addition to the list of Operating Systems as rail systems:

MS-DOS is like the US rail system. It's there, but you gotta
find other ways of getting where they want to go.
_________________________
Fortran is the cockroach of programming languages
MS-DOS is the Fortran of operating systems
MS-Windows is the MS-DOS of windowing systems.
_________________________
About a year ago, a study published in _Academic_Computing_
entitled "Student Writing: Can the Machine Maim the Message"
suggested that college freshmen using Macintoshes wrote poorer
essays than students using DOS-based computers.

The researcher ran the compositions through the Unix Writer's
Workbench and tallied the scores. She also graded them by hand.
Apart from inferior writing quality, she also found that students
using PCs, generally speaking, created more coherent work on more
serious issues (like crime, the death penalty and abortion) as
compared with Macintosh users, who wrote about fast food and
graffiti.

Notice that this was a while ago, before Windoze.
What do you think freshman students who used TeX wrote about?
_________________________

_ /|
\'o.O'
=(___)=
U

THPTH! ACKHH!

Join Bill the Cat in the President's war against DOS.

DOS

JUST SAY

NO
_________________________
Movie titles:
The Primeval Terror -- MS-DOS
Revenge of the Mutant Horror -- OS/2
Windows NT -- The Nightmare Continues
_________________________
Seen in the "women seeking men" part of the "Phone-Match" section of the
San Diego _Reader_ (freebie weekly newspaper):

ARROGANT ENGINEER WANTED. Educated, savvy brunette seeks tall,
extremely intelligent, engineering type. Ex-geeks welcome.
Social skills not necessary; will train. No drug or MS-DOS users.
_________________________
"MSDOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years
of careful development." ---dmeggins@aix1.uottawa.ca
_________________________
Bumper Sticker: "Help stamp out progress, Run Windows"
_________________________
From: a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (Arthur Rubin)

In <2i3vau$e43@news.duke.edu> rcml@acpub.duke.edu (Robert Lonon) writes:

>I'm looking for a utility that will slow down my 486 enough that
>I can run some of the older games I've got that are simply
>too fast to play on a 486. Does anyone out there know
>of a site I could download such a program from?

It's called MS Windows.
_________________________
"When you say 'I wrote a program that crashed Windows', people
just stare at you blankly and say 'Hey, I got those with the
system, *for free*'"

- Linus Torvalds
_________________________
At Microsoft, Quality is Job 1.01
--
_________________________

Make Money Fast

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Here's an incredibly simple way to do it,
and there is nothing to buy,
no investment to make,
no money to lose!

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Follow this simple procedure:

1) Hold down the shift key.
2) Hit the '4' key four times rapidly.

Microsoft Name

Bill Gates meets Hugh Grant at a Hollywood party. They are talking and
Bill says, "I've seen some great pictures of Divine Brown lately, I
sure would like to get together with her!"

Hugh replies, "Well Bill, you know ever since our incident, her price
has skyrocketed, she's charging a small fortune."

Bill (with a chuckle), "Hugh, money's no object to me. What's her
number?"

So Hugh gives Bill her number and Bill sets up a date. They meet &
after they finish, Bill is lying there in ecstasy, mumbling

"Divine... Divine... Divine... oh God... now I know why you choose the
name Divine."

To which she replies, "Thank you Bill. And now I know how you chose
the name Microsoft."

Help Desk Horror

These are stories from help desks around the country.


At 03:37 on a Sunday, I had just looked at the clock to determine my
annoyance level, when I received a frantic phone call from a new user
of a Macintosh Plus. She had gotten her entire family out of the house
and was calling from her neighbour's. She had just received her first
system error and interpreted the picture of the bomb on the screen as a
warning that the computer was going to blow up.

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Tech Support: "I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop."
Customer: "Ok."
Tech Support: "Did you get a pop-up menu?"
Customer: "No."
Tech Support: "Ok. Right click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?"
Customer: "No."
Tech Support: "Ok, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until
this point?"
Customer: "Sure, you told me to write 'click' and I wrote 'click'."
(At this point I had to put the caller on hold to tell the rest of the
tech support staff what had happened. I couldn't, however, stop from
giggling when I got back to the call.)
Tech Support: "Ok, did you type 'click' with the keyboard?"
Customer: "I have done something dumb, right?"

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One woman called Dell's toll free line to ask how to install the
batteries in her laptop. When told that the directions were on the
first page of the manual the woman replied angrily, "I just paid $2,000
for this damn thing, and I'm not going to read the book."

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Customer: "I received the software update you sent, but I am still
getting the same error message."
Tech Support: "Did you install the update?"
Customer: "No. Oh, am I supposed to install it to get it to work?"

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Customer: "I'm having trouble installing Microsoft Word."
Tech Support: "Tell me what you've done."
Customer: "I typed 'A:SETUP'."
Tech Support: "Ma'am, remove the disk and tell me what it says."
Customer: "It says '[PC manufacturer] Restore and Recovery disk'."
Tech Support: "Insert the MS Word setup disk."
Customer: "What?"
Tech Support: "Did you buy MS word?"
Customer "No..."

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Tech Support: "Ok, in the bottom left hand side of the screen, can you
see the 'OK' button displayed?"
Customer: "Wow. How can you see my screen from there?"

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Customer: "Uhh...I need help unpacking my new PC."
Tech Support: "What exactly is the problem?"
Customer: "I can't open the box."
Tech Support: "Well, I'd remove the tape holding the box closed and go
from there."
Customer: "Uhhhh...ok, thanks...."

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Customer: "I'm having a problem installing your software. I've got a
fairly old computer, and when I type 'INSTALL', all it says is 'Bad
command or file name'."
Tech Support: "Ok, check the directory of the A: drive--go to A:> \
and type 'dir'."
Customer reads off a list of file names, including 'INSTALL.EXE'.
Tech Support: "All right, the correct file is there. Type 'INSTALL' again."
Customer: "Ok." (pause) "Still says 'Bad command or file name'."
Tech Support: "Hmmm. The file's there in the correct place -- it can't
help but do something. Are you sure you're typing I-N-S-T-A-L-L and
hitting the Enter key?
Customer: "Yes, let me try it again." (pause) "Nope, still 'Bad command
or file name'."
Tech Support: (now really confused) "Are you sure you're typing
I-N-S-T-A-L-L and hitting the key that says 'Enter'?"
Customer: "Well, yeah. Although my 'N' key is stuck, so I'm using the
'M' key...does that matter?

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At our company we have asset numbers on the front of everything. They
give
the location, name, and everything else just by scanning the computer's
asset bar-code or using the number beneath the bars.

Customer: "Hello. I can't get on the network."
Tech Support: "Ok. Just read me your asset number so we can open an
outage."
Customer: "What is that?"
Tech Support: "That little bar-code on the front of your computer."
Customer: "Ok. Big bar, little bar, big bar, big bar . . ."

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Customer: "I got this problem. You people sent me this install disk, and
now my A: drive won't work."
Tech Support: "Your A drive won't work?"
Customer: "That's what I said. You sent me a bad disk, it got stuck in
my drive, now it won't work at all."
Tech Support: "Did it not install properly? What kind of error messages
did you get?"
Customer: "I didn't get any error message. The disk got stuck in the
drive and wouldn't come out. So I got these pliers and tried to get it
out. That didn't work either."
Tech Support: "You did what sir?"
Customer: "I got these pliers, and tried to get the disk out, but it
wouldn't budge. I just ended up cracking the plastic stuff a bit."
Tech Support: "I don't understand sir, did you push the eject button?"
Customer: "No, so then I got a stick of butter and melted it and used a
turkey baster and put the butter in the drive, around the disk, and
that got it loose. Then I used the pliers and it came out fine. I can't
believe you would send me a disk that was broke and defective."
Tech Support: "Let me get this clear. You put melted butter in your A:
drive and used pliers to pull the disk out?"
At this point, I put the call on the speaker phone and motioned at the
other techs to listen in.
Tech Support: "Just so I am absolutely clear on this, can you repeat
what you just said?"
Customer: "I said I put butter in my A: drive to get your crappy disk
out, then I had to use pliers to pull it out."
Tech Support: "Did you push that little button that was sticking out
when the disk was in the drive, you know, the thing called the disk
eject button?"
Silence.
Tech Support: "Sir?"
Customer: "Yes."
Tech Support: "Sir, did you push the eject button?"
Customer: "No, but you people are going to fix my computer, or I am
going to sue you for breaking my computer?"
Tech Support: "Let me get this straight. You are going to sue our
company because you put the disk in the A: drive, didn't follow the
instructions we sent you, didn't actually seek professional advice,
didn't consult your user's manual on how to use your computer properly,
instead proceeding to pour butter into the drive and physically rip the
disk out?"
Customer: "Ummmm."
Tech Support: "Do you really think you stand a chance, since we do
record every call and have it on tape?"
Customer: (now rather humbled) "But you're supposed to help!"
Tech Support: "I am sorry sir, but there is nothing we can do for you.
Have a nice day."

jokes

1. A HIGHER INTELLIGENCE...
AT&T fired President John Walter after nine months, saying he lacked
"intellectual leadership." He received a $26 million severance package.
Perhaps it's not Walter who's lacking intelligence.
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2. WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS!
Police in Oakland, California spent two hours attempting to subdue a gunman
who had barricaded himself inside his home. After firing ten tear gas
canisters, officers discovered that the man was standing beside them,
shouting "Please come out and give yourself up".
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3. WHAT WAS PLAN B???
An Illinois man pretending to have a gun kidnapped a motorist and forced
him to drive to two different automated teller machines. The kidnapper then
proceeded to withdraw money from his own bank accounts.
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4. THE GETAWAY!
A man walked into a Topeka, Kansas Kwik Stop, and asked for all the money
in the cash drawer. Apparently, the take was too small, so he tied up the
store clerk and worked the counter himself for three hours until police
showed up and grabbed him.
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5. DID I SAY THAT???
Police in Los Angeles had good luck with a robbery suspect who just
couldn't control himself during a lineup. When detectives asked each man in
the lineup to repeat the words, "Give me all your money or I'll shoot," the
man shouted, "that's not what I said!"
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6. ARE WE COMMUNICATING??
A man spoke frantically into the phone, "Her contractions are only two
minutes apart! "Is this her first child?" the doctor asked. "No!" the man
shouted, "This is her husband!"
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7. NOT THE SHARPEST KNIFE IN THE DRAWER!!
In Modesto, CA, Steven Richard King was arrested for trying to hold up a
Bank of America branch without a weapon. King used a thumb and a finger to
simulate a gun, but unfortunately, he failed to keep his hand in his pocket
(helllllloooooooooo!).
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8.THE GRAND FINALE
Last summer, down on Lake Isabella, located in the high desert, an hour
east of Bakersfield, California, some folks, new to boating, were having a
problem. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't get their brand new
22-ft. Bayliner to perform. It wouldn't get on a plane at all, and it was
very sluggish in almost every maneuver, no matter how much power was
applied. After about an hour of trying to make it go, they putted over to a
nearby marina, thinking someone there could tell them what was wrong.
A thorough topside check revealed everything in perfect working order. The
engine ran fine, the outdrive went up and down, the prop was the correct
size and pitch. So one of the marina guys jumped in the water to check
underneath. He came up choking on water, he was laughing so hard. Under the
boat, still strapped securely in place, was the trailer.

GROWTH ORIENTED HUMANISTIC PHILOSOPHY

The whole experience of discovering Creative Self and Creating Relationship by using Creative Interventions is based on the foundation of my Growth Oriented Humanistic Philosophy. I have discovered that philosophy while working in different hospitals in different provinces of Canada in different clinical settings. It is also in harmony with my Humanistic Philosophy that I try to practice in my personal life. In a mysterious way they complement each other. Some of the characteristics of such a philosophy are as follows:

1. GROWTH IS A NATURAL PROCESS

I believe that each child is born with a certain potential. The whole struggle and enjoyment is to manifest that potential. Growth is a natural process. It is like a seed of a plant; if it has optimum warmth, moisture, fresh air and sunshine it will grow to be a healthy tree. In the same way if human infants are provided with the optimum nurturing environment physically, emotionally, intellectually and socially, then they will grow to be healthy and mature adults. The problems arise when the environment is either deficient or restrictive and growth is hampered or retarded. The essence of humanistic psychotherapy is that two or more individuals are involved in joint encounters to understand and change the restricting factors, thereby minimizing the negative influences which are causing unnecessary pain and suffering. At that point the growth of the client can continue to its maximum. I believe that therapy is a process of growth for both client and therapist. I have learned so much from my clients that I dedicated my latest book to them. I feel most therapists generally do not acknowledge how much they themselves grow in therapy with their clients.

2. HEALTH IS MORE VALUABLE THAN ILLNESS

It has been my observation that most therapists and patients are far more pre-occupied with illness-related issues than health-related issues. Most of the time in therapy is utilized in discussing signs, symptoms, problems and weaknesses.

I feel that if are trying to help our patients lead a healthier lifestyle, then alongside trying to control the symptoms, we can also focus on the healthier parts of their lives and encourage those aspects. I usually try to explore the conflict-free areas of their lifestyles and creative aspects of their personalities. I have observed repeatedly that as conflict-free and creative aspects grow in a person, the unhealthy areas recede and go into the background.

3. THE FUTURE IS AS IMPORTANT AS THE PAST

Most of the therapists I have met who belong to the psychoanalytic school of psychotherapy, seemed to be pre-occupied with the past while those therapists who are inspired by the existentialist school of psychotherapy emphasize the present.

I feel tomorrow is as important as yesterday and we are always in the transition from being to becoming. During my initial interviews I usually inquire about my patients?? desires, wishes and dreams and then try to focus of their future goals. I feel that once goals are well defined, realistic plans can be made to achieve those goals.

In therapy I like to deal with only that part of past which has become a stumbling block in achieving a healthy future. I feel freedom for a happy tomorrow is as important as freedom from an unhappy yesterday.

4. HUMAN BEINGS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT, PROFESSIONAL DISCIPLINES AND THERAPEUTIC TECHNIQUES

I am quite aware that most of us as mental health professionals carry our personal and professional biases with us depending upon which school of thought and discipline we belong to and which techniques we are more comfortable and efficient with but I firmly believe that if we have a humanistic attitude towards therapy and an opportunity to work in a multidisciplinary team with a democratic spirit, then we can transcend our biases and have treatment plans that will be the best for our patients and their families. I feel that if we combine different professionals from different orientations with different forms of therapy, we can come up with unique programs to serve our patients.

5. EXPERIENCES ARE MORE AUTHENTIC THAN THEORIES

Although I am a great admirer of those philosophers and theoreticians who offer conceptual frameworks to explain different phenomena, I still feel that human experiences are always ahead of theories. Human experiences are complex, profound and multi-dimensional and any one theory can only capture only certain aspects of those theories. Theories try to explain the present in the light of the past while human life is moving forward all the time towards unknown destinations. That’s why many theories become of mainly historical evidence after a while. As the human condition evolves the clinical pictures change. We need new theories to explain new phenomena but I believe that human experiences will always be ahead of our conceptual frameworks. Ideally both should go hand in hand but in reality experiences lead the theories.

6. A CRISIS CAN BE AN OPPORTUNITY TO GROW

Working as a part of Crisis Intervention Team for a number of years and assessing hundreds of men and women in crisis I became aware that most people associate the experience of crisis with pain, suffering, turmoil and heartache. They usually have a negative view about it. I believe that if people are strong enough emotionally to recover from the crisis or they have friends, relatives, colleagues or therapists to help them go through the turbulent phase, a crisis can become an opportunity to grow. Since the conventional methods of coping do not work, people find creative ways to deal with their problems. I met quite a few people who had a higher level of existence and a better quality of life after the crisis than they had before.

7. WORKING TOGETHER IS MORE PRODUCTIVE THAN WORKING ALONE

Working in the mental health system for a number of years, I have realized that administrators of the hospitals, therapists, patients, their families and social agencies are interconnected with invisible threads. On many occasions I have noticed that a lot of time and energy was wasted when the lines of communication broke down and different parts of the system started functioning in isolation. I feel that coordination and cooperation is crucial to set the priorities for the system. There are always differences of opinion but if an atmosphere of genuine dialogue prevails, time and energy is wasted and the system provides a better health care involvement.

Such an atmosphere is extremely crucial for difficult to manage patients and the ones that are historically called ‘ revolving door patients’ because they are quite needy and their needs are not met by one system alone whether it is family, hospital, addictions, legal or social services. That is why until there is coordination of services and continuity of care, such patients keep on suffering, costing the system a lot of money, time and energy.

8. LIVING IN COMMUNITY MORE NATURAL THAN LIVING IN INSTITUTIONS

It appears as though in the last two hundred years North America has gone through a number of phases in caring for the mentally ill. In the nineteenth century when a large number of mentally sick people were living on the streets and were without food and shelter and proper care, concerned citizens, health care professionals and politicians agreed to build Asylums. So a number of psychiatric hospitals were built all over the country and thousands of patients were looked after there. But gradually it became apparent that asylums were becoming institutions where only custodial care was provided. With the advancement in treatments for seriously mentally ill and human rights movements there was a phase of de-institutionalization and thousands of very sick patients were discharged. That phenomenon led to new problems and now once again a large number of ill people are wandering around in the downtowns of big cosmopolitan cities with inadequate care. Many of them get charged with petty crimes and spend a lot of time in jail.

I believe that although mentally ill people should be cared for in the community close to their families, that is not possible until housing, career training programs and social and recreational activities and home care networks are established. Discharging patients without a better alternative in unwise. I feel that there will always be a number of people who would need institutional care, but if community health care services are well established the number of institutionalized patients will come to be minimum.

9. CULTURAL SENSITIVITY IS IMPORTANT IN DEALING WITH IMMIGRANTS AND PEOPLE FROM OTHER CULTURES

Being born and brought up in one culture and living and practicing psychiatry in another culture, I was always aware of the cultural differences at a personal and professional level.

It has been my experience that the training programs of most health care systems are still not culturally sensitive and that leads to many unfortunate incidents at work and in therapy. I believe that if students are trained from a multi-cultural perspective the social and professional interactions can become not only more productive but also more exciting and enjoyable. We can all learn so much from people of other cultures.

10. A CHAIN IS AS STRONG AS THE WEAKEST LINK

I strongly believe that whether we are patients, family members, health care professionals or politicians, we are all part of a communal chain and in any society the chain is as strong as the weakest link. As a Humanist I believe that people with physical and mental disabilities and illnesses are one of those weakest links and it is crucial for our society to strengthen those links. I feel community education and political will to provide universal health care system are steps in that direction.

I feel proud working in Canada where some of those values are cherished. I feel sad to know that In Unite states of America, one of the richest countries in the world, there are thirty million people without any heath care insurance and thousands of mentally ill people are in jails because of the petty crimes they committed during their illness.

I feel food, shelter, education, voting and free health care are the rights of all citizens. It is our communal responsibility to look after the sick and provide the most compassionate and humane treatment that we can offer. I believe nobody should suffer because of his or her gender, class, ethnic or religious orientation. Health care should be provided free to all citizens of he country.

Dear Bette ! I am quite aware that it is not easy to describe one’s philosophy in a few pages but I wanted to share with you some of the highlights, so that you can share with me the similarities and differences in our practices and philosophies. Affectionately Sohail Mar 2002