Motorola Droid X

Well, my Blackberry Storm is sitting idle in its own cradle; it’s man-genius click-screen days are all over.  It has been replaced by a smarter phone, Droid X.  I won’t bore you with all its technical details charms, but highlight only the things I find of interest.  And there are a lot of things of interest to me already, even after only a couple of hours of use.

Gad, it comes with a lot of memory.  There is 8gb internal and a 16gb removable microSD.  And you will find lots of ways to use that storage once you visit the Market app and try to weed through the apps, games, and other cool things to add-on.  Speaking of which, I already installed Adobe Reader, Labyrinth Lite, RingTone, and Touchdown Pro.  Labyrinth is the cool show-off 3D marble maze game, just because it is.  Touchdown is a (great) Microsoft Exchange client that simply works and is simpler to configure.  The built-in messaging integration to my personal IMAP and Gmail accounts take care of the rest.

While it has an HDMI output jack, I found its built-in Media Share to be a perfect companion with my Sony Playstation 3.  Droid X autoconnects to my home’s wireless router, discovers and allows for the PS3 to connect to it for streaming media (music, pictures, video) out of it for high-def viewing.  This will make the 8mp camera more friendly to use with this kind of easy integration of media files.

Overall, light to handle, touch is responsive, speech-to-text is accurate, apps are fast and intuitive, screen is large and vivid.  My phone just got a lot smarter — cool!

It all started for me on April 8, 1985 at 8:30am.  I recall just about everything that occurred with that first real job as Computer Programmer.  Klitzner Industries of Providence was a manufacturing firm for differing items: pins, lucite encasings, special edition novelty items; most of which I had no clue what they did, as I was so focused at learning on the job.  And learn I did.  My first month was a real eye-opener to what it took to be a computer programmer — mostly patience and diligence — as you poured through somebody else’s abandoned code, flowcharting, and sometimes recoding for optimizations and quirky bug conditions.  We never did any of that in school!

My first paycheck netted a little more than $190.  Wow, I was rich!  My best prior was busting my butt at a variety of part-time jobs from flipping burgers and gophering at the bowling alley for at best $110.  My only debt I had was my student loan at $72 a month and my mother’s edict of relinquishing my first check of each month for room and board.  Ah, I got to enjoy a full year of the simple and uncomplicated life.  I would later screw up that personal nirvana by marrying the following August, not with total regret, but certainly not one of my better choices in life.

Yes, the realities of life were about to come down on me.  I bolted at the chance to earn a great deal of more pay in producing commercial software, rather than provide in-house programming and application support for meager but steady pay. While I enjoy the speed (time-to-market), challenge (project scope creep), and capitalism (bonuses) of commercial software development, my preferred stations in work life have been within the classic data processing / information services department. And like your first love, I guess there will always be a special place in your heart for that first real job.

Over that 25-year span, I got to do just about everything related to Information Technology. I worked within memory and storage constraints measured in kilobytes to highly-available clusters with terabytes; developed computer applications for mainframes and PCs; manipulated large databases from ISAM to relational objects; network cabling from serial to thick coax to fiber; supported every known technical workstation ever created; systems and network administration from an 80-employee professional firm to an 800-employee hospital campus; and IT management from a single part-time operator to directing a larger scale re-architect of 55 persons to a consolidated Information Services department.  I have spent millions, saved millions, and was key to projects that profited by millions.

I am confident to claim that I have experienced every aspect IT has had to offer. My challenges ahead are focused on improving upon high availability and disaster recovery with newer replication and virtualization technologies, implementing security and change control auditing in a manner that is suitable for developers and its infrastructure alike, and contributing my application and technical expertise within the middleware space.

As I look ahead, I wonder if I will ever look back at this while posting a Gold Anniversary blog entry. The years make it possible, as I am turning 45 in June.  But what about my willingness, or performance at a high-level, or will I still be me at that ripe age of 70 with all of that stacked to make it unlikely?  Not to worry, this ride for 25-years for something I enjoy to do is gratifying.  Onward.

I consider myself fairly web-savvy and have done countless, secure, safe transactions on the Internet for the past 15-years.  But this event totally disregarded my choice to decline their purported service — clicking “No thanks” resulted in a monthly recurring charge from my credit card.  And I can only blame myself for not catching it earlier, but this wreaks of a criminal act.

Well, calling their customer service was no treat either, when you are greeted by “Enter the credit card number that is being billed”.  Yeah, right, like I want to disclose that information to you, when you ripped it off dove-tailing another separate online service to begin with.  I purportedly received a claim number and the last charge will get reversed within the next two business days.  Stay tuned, I have this suspicious feeling this episode ain’t quite over.  Let’s hope my intuition on this matter is wrong.

Some of you will recall that on July 8, 1947, witnesses claim that an unidentified flying object (UFO) with five aliens aboard crashed onto a sheep and mule ranch just outside Roswell, New Mexico. This is a well-known incident that many say has long been covered up by the U.S. Air Force and other federal agencies.

However, what you may NOT know is that in the month of April 1948, nine months after that historic day, the following people were born:

• Albert A. Gore, Jr.
• Hillary Rodham
• John F. Kerry
• William J. Clinton
• Howard Dean
• Nancy Pelosi
• Dianne Feinstein
• Charles E. Schumer
• Barbara Boxer

See what happens when aliens breed with sheep and jackasses?  I certainly hope this bit of information clears up a lot of things for you. It did for me. No wonder they support the bill to help illegal aliens!

Calling an illegal alien an ‘undocumented immigrant’ is like calling a drug dealer an ‘unlicensed pharmacist’.

And fickle is the appropriate word, because you-know-who-you-are have repeatedly (but cautiously) used how the (almost) Team of the Decade are winners, because they play as a team.  You boast loudly how there are no legends here like Brett Favre and Peyton Manning; no stars to lean on like Terrell Owens and Tony Romo; and no media-whoring coaching personalities like Bill Parcells and Brian Billick to distract us from our team-first approach.

But as those championship teams have faded away, you watched on as the glowing and growing accolades endowed on Billy and Tommy from those past successes got more and more over-hyped by the media (ala Jim Nance) — to the sickening point now that we are awed whenever Tommy throws a pass that actually carries more than 15 yards in the air.  Or Tommy does the Daunte Culpepper chuck for a 5th or 6th TD to Moss when the game is clearly over.  Or Tommy is the recipient of a gracious blown call (tuck rules and touching the passer), or any of the slew of real bad plays made from their weak-ass opponents, aka, the AFC East — somehow Billy and Tommy both had something to do with that, too.

Yes, you hear it often repeated from those same clueless “fans” about how this team are still winners, because we have this stud in Tommy and this genius that is Billy Belichick.  Really?  Let’s review the 2nd half of this decade, after The Team had been dismantled to make way for cheaper, but talented misfits …

It started in 2005, Tommy’s first playoff loss at the hands of the Denver Broncos, which carried forward into the start of the 2006 season with the infamous perception of Tommy’s body language.  The consummate playboy was caught sulking, because he no longer had that cast of skilled receivers that carried his screen passes for 10+ yards.  Pioli took care of that in the offseason with a whole new core of gifted receivers.

But the team’s 2007 campaign showed me something about that coach & qb style of play.  Yes, play.  They certainly did not show any class defined by leaders of men, nor sportsmanship typically given by well-paid professionals.  With the Kraft’s purchase of five new receivers, Billy and Tommy bought into their own hype from the surrounding talent they possessed and personally cashed in on it.  But they got caught cheating.  Still, they turned a negative into a positive, and they galvanized The Team by running up scores for all its statistical worth.  Their Pursuit of Perfection (with an asterisk) escaped defeat in the regular season and then again by barely making it through the playoffs, despite suspect game planning and Tommy’s apparent slide in performance — but making it still to yet another Super Bowl appearance.  Only this time there was no Ty Law or Adam Vinatieri or Troy Brown or Drew Bledsoe or bad calls from a ref to make up for that lousy game plan and poor execution.  Perhaps The Team was showing some division by the snubs Moss got from not getting ANY individual recognition for his record-catching 23 TDs?  Tommy got BOTH MVP and Offensive Player of the Year — and The Team got another AFC trophy for Kraft’s palace.

Then 2008, when I thought we all might see The Team re-emerge when Matt Cassel took over.  Wow, a former starting QB — from high school — takes over The Team when Tommy went down clutching his knee in week one.  Cassel’s play was a result of The Team’s effort that year — it proved that a capable QB on that Team can be winners.  Unfortunately, The Team without Brady still had to contend with The Legend in New York named Brett Favre, which resulted in the 2008 Patriots becoming only the 3rd team in NFL history to get to 11 wins, yet not make the playoffs.  Fortunately for Tommy’s return, Matt Cassel, Scott Pioli, and Josh McDaniels took advantage of other opportunities, perhaps knowing that this well has gone dry — I was getting a sense from the faithful that we were all hoping for Tommy to get traded away, if only Pioli was still around.

No doubt, both Tommy and Billy are destined for the Hall of Fame, for which they both should be eligible for in 2015 — if the Kraft’s have any sense and are really committed to getting back to championship football.

What The Team needs is a tough leader, that inspires with his play and emotions.  Tom Brady has never achieved that status quo here with the New England faithful.  Dink-and-dunk plays, choreographed footwork, sulking when things go wrong, and repeated appeals to refs — New England is not about the acts of a momma boy.  And the drab we have to bear after every game, ugh.  We are used to the kind of toughness seen in today’s QB like Ben Roethlisberger coupled with emotion that fires a team up like Brett Favre.  Those men are special.  In years past, we embraced Steve Grogan and Drew Bledsoe, while hating and respecting their rivals in Dan Marino and John Elway, because all of them were tough men, played the game, and lead their teammates.

I was not shocked that Tommy was allowed by Billy to finish today’s game, even after it was clearly out of reach.  I expected Tommy to continue with the nice safe short completions to get his yards and completion% back up to a respectable number.  But I was pleased to see The Team drop a number of those make-me-look-good-on-the-stat-line passes, after all, why take yet another hit for the playboy?  Oh, yeah, The Team is in trouble, because it is in dire need of leadership.

As fans, we shunned Tommy Hodson and Hugh Millen, and we booed Tony Eason out of town.  So why does Tommy get a pass when he was handed the keys to run our New England football team?  I know I haven’t bought in to that hype, but then again, I live in Providence — in a state formed originally to avoid Massachusetts intolerance of religious freedoms — so I guess I will never understand the Boston-based faithful with their fickle fans.

Go VIKINGS!!

Anyways, I assembled one of the four for my personal collection, which was an easy insert-and-twist of the handle into its base.  And the supplied USB cable is ample in length.  Fired up the new VICE 2.2 software using Fedora 12 and its SDL UI immediately recognized the joystick as “USB HID v1.01 Gamepad [USB_Classic]“. No compatibility issues whatsoever — nice!

Even nicer was that old Atari joystick feel. As cheap and lightweight these joysticks go, nothing beats that old wigglin’ away and pounding that little red fire button as if pressing down any harder will make the 8-bit action perform any better — heh. I witnessed many such maneuvers from fallen opponents that took a classic beat-down from yours truly. The handle would creak mercilessly from the strain, followed by that wincing poppin’ sound of plastic giving in to the futile gesture. Usually, the busted joystick would go airborne and I’d have to go ducking.

Ah, thanks, Curt, for bringing back such lovely memories!

Atari-style joystick for your PC

Oh, I agree you should not regret the decision — to admit that means you capitulate to the growing reality that the game has escaped you.  Time to move on, before the Kraft’s exile you to Buffalo.  I think you have enough marbles left to decide on a noble suicide than work for Ralph Wilson.

All joking aside, it’s hard to believe Bill was thinking that decision gave the team their best chance to win.  I think he panicked.  Let’s consider what was at stake.  It probably means the AFC road to the Super Bowl goes through Indianapolis.  And, it certainly would have stopped the Colts win streak at 17, and keep them from tying their 18 regulars-in-a-row streak.

So, was Bill really thinking of his team’s best chances?  A football team has three aspects, and he was only considering The One he thought he had in Tommy.  The only decision that has “paid off” for him, separating him from a lackluster coaching career that was always in the shadow of NFL titan Bill Parcells.  The One was allowing Tommy to throw the ball in that situation.  Bill can hide behind delusional football “statistics” that steered his decision, but he failed to do what he preaches:  Situation, situation, situation.  In that situation, you’re ahead, you’re on the road, you’re deep in your own territory, you punt the ball to a team with no timeouts and a short clock working against them.  Only then can you objectively assess what kind of team you have.

… or you can panic and gamble for the win.

Bill’s gamble not only lost the game, but sends a clear message to the other two aspects of a football team.  And to the fans, too, that also bought into Belichick and Brady’s proclaimed selflessness that brought them three championships this decade: a solid defense (2001, 2003, 2004), special teams (2001, 2004), strong running game (2003, 2004), and cerebral QB play (2003).  Everyone observed that they were Team First.

So what turned him from that formula of success, the start of which the world saw from that Giants’ improbable Super Bowl win in 2007?  Is Bill believing the hype?  Did Bill succumb to Tommy’s “body language” of 2005 and 2006, with this selfish need to pad “statistical” worth by running up the score and “chuck it to Moss” plays?  Did he turn renegade from the asterisk in their 16-win regular season?  Why would an accomplished professional football coach deviate in THIS situation?

Well, it’s going to be interesting to me to see how this change in “tactics” will play out to the rest of the team and fans this season.

Of course, for me, NIH Syndrome was something I grew up with as information technology availability was encroaching upon the masses — the electronics industry pursuit for a captive market.  Back then, it was coined as ‘home computing’.  The home computing era was important to me, because it was a commonplace endeavor then of writing your own software programs.  I fully embraced that endeavor, and as a result of that passionate pursuit, it became my choice of profession when I became an adult.

As it was back then, software availability was both sparse and expensive, so just about every home computer included a BASIC interpreter, with options to extend the language with graphics and storage commands, or to allow for programming in other popular languages such as Assembly, Forth, and Pascal.  Without BASIC or the ability to write your own software programs, owning a home computer would have been completely pointless.  In my opinion, the anti-competitive behavior that is a result of NIH Syndrome was a contributing factor to the video game crash of 1983, as it gave way to the long-term result of gaming console dominance shifting from the United States to Japan.  Home computing begot personal computing — and a new software market was formed and essentially limited homebrew software development to the enthusiasts.

This century, I believe the lessons that have been learned from NIH Syndrome in computing include the acceptance of Open Source and GPL software within the captive market for ubiquitous, personal, and business computing alike.

I found the photos and stories there to be quite interesting, but his wife Michelle puts it another way: “I hope this cures your insomnia.”  While I love modesty, it was her opening statement that made me laugh loudly to set the proper mood:

I once mentioned to Fred that I thought it would be fun to take a cruise.  Fred took this to mean “let’s buy a boat and go cruising”.  So, lesson learned. I must be VERY specific when discussing vacation plans with Fred.

Heh, now I know why Fred was so loved.