Interactive Whiteboard
My buddy Van told me about this…and I see some fun applications with this, especially with kids…imagine a white board that the kids could actually write on the walls with…or turning the home theater system into an interactive gaming area as well. Hell, even with the low budget office, this could really be an advantageous tool to have for staff meetings, R&D meetings, and just general brainstorming…
TSA Blog
The TSA has been in the news quite frequently, so I’m sure everybody has a general understanding of what they do, why they do it, so forth. Even though the people demanded an agency be created, the people are complacent and don’t like what they requested…However
What the TSA does, what DHS does, is mostly transparent to the general population. If the general population had the ability to read the morning reports that come across, about what sorts of threats and bad guys there are in our neighborhoods, the general population may be saying that TSA does not do enough…or they’d be at least conscientious of their own lives, their own neighborhoods, and appreciate those who are conscientious of those for them.
The TSA has a blog up that since it’s inception approximately 2 weeks ago, has done not much more than draw the ire of belly-ache’rs and those with lives so good, they have to hunt for things to complain about. Those who complain that there are others trying to protect them…
This blog, at http://www.tsa.gov/blog, is a good idea. It answers questions that you may not be able to get while standing in a 17 minute line and hustled through the screening process. It gives answers to why you can only take a quart sized baggy with 3.2 ounce containers, why you have to take off your shoes, why you can’t bring your favorite target pistol and silver bullets on board with you. It also gives you the interface to actually see what Kip Hawley is saying, and what the motivations behind TSA are.
TSA ranked along with IRS, and barely above FEMA, as the most hated agencies…I think I know why. TSA asks you to put forth a little effort in order to assure that you, and everybody else is protected in the sky’s above our country, and the people who belly ache about this are those who feel put-out by being asked to do anything. TSA does a good job at what they do, and gets a bad rap by those who are lazy more or less…
Enough of my rant on the 1% of people. We all have to deal with them some time or another. I encourage anybody who comes across this blog to take a look at the new blog, maybe ask an intelligent question that could be beneficial to many people, and quite possible, be someone who could make a change for the better, for the security staffs and passenger’s alike.
Starting the Online Office
So, I use Google Apps right now for my documents, calendar, planning, and so forth, for OBriNet. I’ve got a list of a hundred things I have to do still, like register my business, apply for a Federal EIN, open a bank account strictly for the business, so forth. The more I start looking into what needs to be done only for the business (not for the client support), I have some work to do still. Most of it is not hard, but as of right now, I’m about $100 in the red on the business books, and I have other stuff I have to do with my regular paycheck (like insulating the attic and Christmas) that I can’t afford to dump many resources into the business right now.
Anyways, on the back-end stuff, I’m using Google Apps for documents. This does leave something to be desired for the most part, but it works enough to do what I need it to do. I was doing a little research into the costs of leasing an online server (Server 2003 preferably) so I could do a cost-benefit analysis (CBA), compared to building out another server, and making it strictly a business server (along with the dedicated internet line, static IP, so forth) so that I could really have an online office. Anyways (again) I found something that could rival, if not beat, Google in the documents department. It’s a site called ThinkFree, and from what I’ve read, it’s just about as good as using the standard MS Office for creating documents, spreadsheets, and Presentations.
One thing I like about this so far (from reading documentation on the website) is that not only can you use this online, but you can download the software for use on your computer. It supports the standard Windows, but also current versions of Apple’s OSX and Linux with a Kernel of 2.2.4 or newer. How can it do this you ask? It’s run solely in Java, which is OS Independent. Nice :)
On top of being able to use the document creation on the site, you can also invite others for collaboration, and store up to 1024MB (known as a GB) of documents as well.
Why am I writing about this? Is it that I just try and find multiple ways of doing the same thing? Yep. Am I just a geek with apparently entirely too much free time? sort of. Most importantly, however, is that my goal is to try and help small businesses with their IT needs without incurring the typical IT and consultant fee’s, which can be great. If I can cut down on the typical expenses such as online backup, online hosting, and software, this could save a single small business a couple of thousand bucks a year. (case in point, I just moved my one single client over to a new online backup routine, which is just more secure and offers more options, saving him 780/yr)
The more I look for ways to help my own small business out in the long run, the more I’m finding ways of cutting costs for other small businesses. Nice
