375
04/07/06




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New Webhost

My website is now being served from a new webserver located at a different ISP than before. Previously five or six of us computer nerd types shared a webserver that we paid to have located at PA.net, a local ISP. One of us, Eric, decided to branch off and begin his own webhosting company. I moved all of my websites over to his new server located at PA Online, another local ISP. The ISP doesn't own or administer the server. Rather, Eric just pays them a monthly fee for them to keep our server for us and have it hooked up to a blazing fast connection.

If you are looking for a capable, affordable, and reliable webhost, I definitely recommend OpenThought, LLC, Eric's company that, among other things, does webhosting. Check out the website for more details. Eric is very willing to please his customers and he loves what he does. I have used different webhosts before and Eric's is definitely the best.

The conversion of donnyspi.com, Bee Barb Outfitters, Sherry Enterline.com, The Workman Family website, and F.D. Campbell Memorial Library websites all went fairly seemlessly. There were some issues along the way that were quickly fixed. Now these same issues won't happen to anyone else.

So all the way from being hosted at Angelfire in 1997 to OpenThought in 2006, Magnum Opus continues to be the internet's 10 billionth most popular website :-)

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    374
    04/03/06




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    The Mandatory Greeting Program

    I recently heard from a friend that their company received a suggestion from an employee that managers should say "Good morning" to all their employees, not just certain ones. I can't help but wonder where that suggestion will lead that company. What's next? Will someone put in a suggestion that everyone should have to greet everyone else each morning? I wondered how much that would cost the company. Much the same way Challenger, Gray & Christmas calculated the total cost of lost productivity due to March Madness to American businesses, I made some calculations to figure out how much a Mandatory Greeting Program would cost my friend's company.

    I found out that there are about 140 employees in the company. If each employee had to engage in a greeting interaction with everyone else, the amount of greet interactions would be 10,011. That's ((140*(140-1))/2. (Thanks Mr. Osborn's Discrete Math class, I knew it would come in handy someday.) Now, if each greet interaction takes 10 seconds, 10,011 greet interactions would take 27.81 man hours to complete. Assuming the average hourly rate of all employees is $10/hour, that's $278.10 per day. Multiply that by approximately 255 workdays per year, you'll come up with a total yearly cost of $70,915.50 for the Mandatory Greeting Program. It's worth it I guess, right? No? Yeah, maybe not.

    Comments
    • Ah, gas is too expensive as it is, so I'll do my part:
      Interesting math, Don. Could you give us some estimates on how much we would save by implementing the new "Hallway Traffic Law" too ? (Love that poster btw)
      And on a side note: After almost 4 years in this country, I still struggle a bit with a good and resolute reply to the "Ha-ya-doin?" greeting we use over here. I'm fully aware of the fact that the greeter do not care much about my health in general, but I still have to pouder a bit on how to reply and by doing so, I mess up the all-important timing. The other day I thought I had it down by replying with a quick and matter-of-factly "pretty-good-how'bout'you?". That worked fine until this morning, when the clerk over at Rutter's asked me where my wife was. *sigh - back to work*
         Posted by nils on 04/03/06

    • I usually go with a reply of, "Pretty good, you?" Thanks to Justin and his dad for the "...you?" part at the end. I sometimes mess up when people wish me well and I automatically say "you too!" The guy at the ticket counter says, "Enjoy the movie!" and I blurt out "you too!". Oh well... I try.
         Posted by DonnySpi on 04/03/06

    373
    03/30/06




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    Wanna Dance?

    Ever walk down the hall at the same time as someone else walking in the opposite direction and then get confused about who's going where? You head left, then right, then left, then right. They do the same thing until they finally say, "Wanna dance?"

    In order to eliminate such an awkward and clumsy situation and to stop people from asking a question that's almost as bad as saying "Looks like someone's got a case of the Mondays..." I propose a Hallway Traffic Law whereby everyone walks on their right-hand side of the hallway, all the time, no exceptions. Here, look at these drawings. (They're bird's-eye-view drawings of a hallway, not a commercial for Plavix):

    Here, you can see two people walking down the middle of the hallway, getting all confused. Ultimately, one of them ends up trying to be funny and asks the other, "Wanna dance?" Make it stop! Walk to the right: for increased efficiency.











    Under the proposed Hallway Traffic Law, you can see how easily people will navigate the hallways. Walk to the right: for increased productivity.












    See, even if people start out not walking as they should, they can correct themselves and avert disaster. Walk to the right: for increased job satisfaction!












    To encourage people to follow the new Hallway Traffic Law, we can put up posters like these WWII style posters.

    Comments
    • Get the word out!
         Posted by Anonymous Coward on 04/06/06

    372
    03/29/06




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    "Off" is the new "Down"

    Today Bebe begins his first obedience class at Petsmart. Amanda and I met the instructor and got a feel for how the classes will be run. Bebe will get to socialize with other dogs and people. he'll learn commands such as sit, stay, come, off, and down. Until now I always thought you tell a dog "down" when you want him to quit jumping on you. Apparently, that's what "off" is for. I have a feeling that I'm going to need just as much training as Bebe will.

    Part of our adoption agreement states that we'd take Bebe to pet training. I'm not sure why they require it, but it's probably a good idea. Hopefully Bebe will get a lot out of it. We were told not to feed Bebe a few hours before the class so that he'll be motivated by treats to perform the way we want him to.

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      371
      03/27/06




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      Changing Passwords

      One of the most annoying and frustrating aspects of managing users and workstations is getting users to successfully change their passwords. The policies set forth by the network administrator dictate the frequency of password changes and what acceptable passwords are. The tough part is this screen:

      I can't tell you the number of times I have seen users type a new password in the "New Password" field and then hit enter, completely ignoring the "Confirm New Password" field! Sometimes they even ask what goes in the "Old Password" box. I'm inclined to think that the majority of the blame should go to the users for not reading carefully and thinking through the password changing process. Is there anything about this screen that should be changed from an ease-of-use point of view? Should "Old Password" really say "Current Password" since it's not really old until it gets changed? Should there be a sentence or two of instructions? I don't think that should really be necessary, but we do live in the day in age where there are instructions on Pop Tart boxes and Nutrition Facts on bottled water. Maybe we need Clippy to tap on the screen and offer up a few choice words :-)

      I took the liberty of redesigning the Change Password screen. This should help people change their password...

      Comments
      • Preach it Don!
           Posted by Riddle on 03/27/06

      • Perhaps somewhere between those two forms.
           Posted by Scott on 03/28/06

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