Effective Thoughts

Update: My comments highlighted on Free Money Finance . A bit off topic but I'd like to publicize this in an attempt to resolve the situation and to warn others about Sears lack of customer service. I ordered a part from Sears for my refrigerator, attempted to cancel that part the following day, was informed Sears can't cancel part orders (huh?), followed the return instructions to a "T", and have yet to see a full refund after 60 days. I've had 6+ communications with Sears only to receive the run-around every time. My advice: don't shop at Sears. If anything goes wrong, they will drown you in bureaucracy betting that they'll outlast you. My comment posted to Free Money Finance received a highlight (scroll down) recently. FMF's author is fighting Sears on about a malfunctioning elliptical exercise machine. Here are the full details of my tussle wrapped into a recent email to Sears. I'm posting the response which is consistent with the previous 6...

Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's recently-named CEO suceeding Scott McNealy, purchased a life-sized art rendering of Hewlett and Packard , founders of HP. Schwartz, who somehow believes Sun is actually a competitor of HP (laughable...even with HP's stumbles with Carly), purchased the artwork for $6,000 to declare "...a rebirth of fun at Sun" Sun has plumeted so far from valuable or useful, I can't believe I'm even giving this non-event writing time. But I must... First off, this "owning" Hewlett and Packard and taking photos with them is not funny. It is lame. It is uncreative. It is unproductive. It's certainly not funny. What would be funny is if H&P were somehow resurrected, came back and beat the life out of Sun's senior management team using an old HP 9810A . Now that's funny! If I were a Sun stockholder, I might like to carry out a bit of my own bashing. A 52-week high of $5.20/share with a whopping P/E of -19 (yes, that's a negat...

Insightful writeup on how to manage others to manage you well. It's targeted to writing but I think the points transfer to other disciplines.

Excellent piece on the ails of technology products and how they miss the mark for business. Not always the case but all too often, IMO. My favorite paragraph: A lack of communication occurs between Mr. VP and Mr. IT: Mr. IT: “Dude, you’ll need all these features. It’s rockin’ Web 2.0! WEB 2.0! If you don’t have it, your company will die. A crazy death.” Mr. VP: “Wow! Okay! Buy, buy!” Mr. IT: “Everybody dance now!”

Schneier blames poor security on the computer industry... I have to disagree. My dad (sorry dad...no offence) has no excuse for constantly screwing up his system at home. I've educated the heck out of him and he still finds the need to "tweak". He seriously calls me at least once a month with an issue. Last month, he'd somehow bridged his wireless and wireline network adapters. What? Don't mess with what you don't fully understand. I also disagree it's the industry's fault from a corporate standpoint. If some fool can install software on their bank workstation, it's the bank IT department's fault. Hello? Group Policy. It's pure IT laziness (or misaligned priorities...or ignorance) not to have group policy prohibiting installation of software on machines. Should we castigate Edison when some fool misuses electricity and injures themselves? No. If users fail to observe safety or recommended precautions, there's no one else to blame--op...