What I like about GMail

Let first state that I consider web based email a necessary evil. Its
slow, cumbersome, in-the-way, and just an all around bother. Give me
something like Thunderbird and I can really get through my email in a
hurry.

GMail has changed all that. Here are the current list of things I
like about using GMail:
* It is fast. I can get through my email faster using the web than
I can using a client like thunderbird
* My inbox is not cluttered. I don't have to worry about losing
anything so I label and archive. As a matter of fact, I have filters
setup on all my mailing lists so once a read a message, I can just
archive it.
* Did I mention is was fast?
* I don't have to wonder, "Am I going to need this sometime in the
future". Just archive it and if I need it, I can use Google's Super
D. Duper searching.
* The way it handles conversations is amazing. No my mail doesn't
fillup with various pieces of a conversation, but just a single
conversation that can be expanded or ignored. Nice.
* It pretty fast to.

Ok, its not perfect
* The contact list could use some attention.

It is fast though

Congruence between purpose and action

Dictionary.com/Congruence: "Congruence

n : the quality of agreeing; being suitable and appropriate"

In life, our actions and our wishes must be congruent in order to achieve our goals and maintain balance in our lives. It has been said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. It is likewise true that to complete a journey of a thousand miles, each step must be in the direction of the destination. If we deviate from the course, our trip will be that much longer, or we may never get there.

Take losing weight for example. The wish would be to weigh a certain amount, or to be fitter, or something. To write that down, or somehow fix it firmly in mind would be the first step of a long journey. Yet, to complete the journey, one needs to constantly be working towards the destination. Each time the path to the destination is left, more effort must be exerted and more time expended before the goal is reached.

It is the little, daily decisions that mean the difference between success and "next time". It you want to reach the north pole, you can only get there by going north. Any movement south is going to have to be redone or the goal will not be reached.

Consider each act thourghout your day. Is it helping you to reach some definate goal you have in mind? If so, do it the best that you can and as diligently as you can to make as much progress in the least amount of time. If not, why are you doing it? If you are not making progress toward your goal, you must be moving away from it.

When we try to encourage someone to correct some behavior, it is often easy to discourage them instead. They need to hear twice as much good about themselves as they hear bad.

[http://www.computerworld.com/developmenttopics/websitemgmt/story/0,10801,92583,00.html]

A Sunny Forecast for Open-Source - Computerworld

Weather.com switched to open-source, saving a boat-load of money while increasing through-put. Support was at least as good as the other guys.

espite the self-serving air of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) that commercial vendors create around open-source software, lots of open-source products work very well and can be deployed and run for about half the cost of commercial products.

"Literally, in some cases it was orders of magnitude cheaper to go to the Linux boxes," he says. "We replaced machines that were $500,000 with machines that were $50,000."

Weather.com's software developers also found WebSphere to be cumbersome and slow. As a work-around, they frequently developed applications using another tool and then ported them to the WebSphere application server. majority of team members preferred Tomcat, so the group decided to pilot-test the software with a new version of the Web site's local activity page, which dynamically serves up weather data for selected cities. For the test, the team had configured the servers to switch back and forth between WebSphere and Tomcat.

The switch to Tomcat software and Intel-based commodity servers also enables the Web site to add capacity quickly and relatively inexpensively. "In our architecture, which is very flat, scalability comes by buying more machines and throwing more Web servers on them. It's much more cost-justifiable to add 30% more capacity by buying 12 more machines," says Tim Bolser, director of application development. "We don't have to write a check to IBM [for WebSphere licensing fees], and it gives us a lot more flexibility in terms of deploying assets."

"Now when I talk to senior management about moving from Oracle to MySQL they don't ask me, 'Are you sure?'" he says. "They ask me, 'When?'"

The things of least value in the long-run are the things that are diminished in the using: moeny, cars, property, clothes, etc. The things of most value are the things that are increased in the using: love, charity, health, etc. Somethings, like people, fall into either category. You can use them in such a way that they are used up. Contrarywise, you can "use" people in such as way as they are increased afterwards. Its up to you.

In the Mar 29 issue of ComputerWorld is an interview with Peter Harris, founder of the language and the company known as ADPAC, which has been around for 40 years in the software business. Among some the things he says is:

I kept telling everybody, "There ain't nobody going to change over to Java." It's a crazy language. It's more like C++. It's difficult to program, difficult to maintain; who's going to do it? Now, programmers, when they go to school, what do they learn? They learn C++. Where are they going to get a job? They can't get a job until they can boast some Cobol experience.

Guess I better learn COBOL.

I submitted this today.

Many "brand names" have been added to the English language over the years. A couple of examples are: frisbee for a flying plastic disk; spam for unsolicted electronic communication and slashdot for overwhelming a web site with traffic, not to be confused with a DOS attack. Of course doh is now in the Oxford dictionary. It is time that microsoft (notice lowercase) be added to the language as well. From a future dictionary:

microsoft

(verb) 1. to behave in a manner contrary to accepted norms and standards; 2. to act in a self-serving manner, often at the expense of others; 3. to crush as a large behemoth sqashing smaller creatures

For example, one would say, "Godzilla microsofted both Toyko and Bambi" and "SCO has been microsofting Linux again" as well as "The RIAA microsofts their customers". Let's hope that it takes less time for microsoft to take its rightful place in the dictioary than it did for "doh". I'll bet if all the slashdotters out there start using it in both written and verbal communication we can go from slashdotting a web site to slashdotting the dictionary. BEHOLD, the power of slash dot.

Here are 6 things to do while trying to reach your goals:

1. Do not become upset or disheartened with set backs
2. Do not let concern for your ego get in the way of trying new things
3. Do not be lazy; always find things to do to reach your goals
4. Keep looking for options, other opportunites that will help you
5. Keep you emotions in check. Don't get overly depressed or excited
6. Have faith in yourself and your ability to acheive what you have decided to achieve; be confident

EPHESIANS 6:5-8

5 Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ;
6 Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;
7 With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men:
8 Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.

As you read that verse, replace servent and master with employee and boss respectively. We, in a very real sense, become temporary servants to our bosses. For 8 hours a day you work doing to bidding of your employer. Once you accept than, then you realize that this verse applies to you in your work life. You should serve your boss as though you were serving the Master, Christ. Would you belittle or gossip about the Saviour? Would you slack on His work? As King Benjamin said, When you are in the service of your fellow beings, you are only in the service of your God. Your boss is your fellow being and how well you perform your labors for him will be measured by the Judge of all.

The law of the harvest applies in the business world as in any other areas of our lives. You sow what you reap in your employment. As it says in verse 8, you will receive the same from God as you give out to your fellow man, even your boss.

I have also been listening to some tapes on how to succeed. One of the main points of emphasis has been the law of cause and effect. That when things happen to you at work, it is related what you caused to happen. If your boss hears of you speaking badly of him or the company, then he will remember that next time layoffs comes. If on the otherhand, the boss sees you working diligently even when no one is looking, he will remember that, too. Remeber, the boss is also an employee/servant to some other boss. When you look good, that makes the boss look good in his superiors eyes. A master/boss values an employee/servant who can be trusted to do his duty and then go the extra mile.

From Benjamin Franklin's Way to Wealth

Work hard today for you do not know how much you may be hindered tomorrow, which makes Poor Richard say that one today is worth two tomorrows. If you were a servant, would you not be ashamed that a good master should catch you idle? Are you not your own master? Then be ashamed to catch yourself idle, as Poor Dick says. When there is so much to be done for yourself, your family and your country, you should be up at the crack of dawn. Let not the sun look down and catch you lying about with nothing to do.

Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide From the first edition - 2000 - Pages 26 - 34

Multiple descriptors are separated by ;

By using the CLASS attribute on HTML tags and the class selector, style can be applied to a variety of elements, not just all instances of a given HTML tag. A class selector is:.class { declarations; }. ID selectors work the same way, only they start with a # and apply to ID attributes instead of CLASS. ID should be unique in a given document, there should only be one element given a specific ID.

Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide From the first edition - 2000 - Pages 23 -26

A declaration looks like:

{ property: value; [property: value;]* }

Using an incorrect property causes the entire declaration to be ignored. Bad values may or may not cause the declaration to be ignored.

Selectors can be grouped in the same rule by separating them with commas: H1, H2, H3 { color: red;}

A train station is where a train stops.
A bus station is where a bus stops.
Cubicles are often called "workstations" ...

A beta version of Java 1.5 is available if you want to fiddle with it abit. All you have to do is register for free at the JavaLobby website.The link is http://www.javalobby.org/members/j2se15.jsp

Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide From the first edition - 2000 - Pages 17 - 23

Use C-style comments in style sheets.

CSS styles are defined by rules. The structure of a rule is:

selector { declaration }

The selector defines which parts of the HTML document to apply the style to. The declaration describes what styles to apply. The declaration is a set of name/value pairs.

The simple selector is the same as an HTML tag: P H1 LI etc. It applies to all the tags that match it. To change all the top level headers to be red use: H1 { color: red; }

Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide From the first edition - 2000 - Pages 10 - 16

The LINK tag can be used to include an external style sheet. That way multple HTML files can share the same style sheet. Be sure to use .css as the extension on the style sheet. In the LINK tag, the REL attribute can be set to stylesheet for the primary style sheet or alternate stylesheet. The browser may allow the user to select one of the alternate style sheets.

Imbedded style sheets use the STYLE tag with the TYPE attribute set to text/css. The @import will link in an external style sheet within STYLE tags. Of course, @import is ignored by Navigator 4. To be more compatible with older browers, include the style declarations within the STYLE tag in HTML comments so they are ignored by older browers that don't grok the STYLE tags.