Disqus - Latest Comments for johnconnolly

Re: CDN - Canada boasts world's third-largest video game industry

johnconnolly — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 10:39:34 -0000

These dudes show true marketing genius - they've enlarged their adolescent target market right up to the 30ish adollescents. Well, at least it's safer than Snowmobiles in avalanche country

Re: CDN - End of support for Microsoft operating systems drawing near

johnconnolly — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 10:55:51 -0000

What a break! MS & Java 'updates' are hogging over 20% of my disk space. Old Java updates (I know they're not an MS product), refuse to uninstall.

When the whole mess finally fails, I suggest ALL MS clients switch to Unix. MS goverance, to use that asinine P.C. word, is in the hands of a group of rich priveleged stock option millionaires and multi-millionaires. Lord Bountiful, W. Gates, has morphed from a school drop out Bucanneer, diddling IBM, to a Zen Plutocrat, and who cares? MS is a modern day Jesuit cult. Time for a new systems leader.

Re: Thriving Toronto tech firm shows wisdom of hiring immigrant talent

johnconnolly — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 11:00:22 -0000

Another politically correct log on the fire of Canada's colonization by 'underpriveleged' immigrants. We recently received two phone calls from telemarketers which were quite similar. In a thick Mardarin accent the caller inquired 'You speak Chinese?' when I said 'no' their response was 'Owner Chinese?'. Then it dawned on me. Our Sino-Canadian friends were bluntly announcing their supremacy in our business at the dealer level, and saw no need to speak english to Canadian outsiders in 'their' busininess. They probably took the computer supplies column of the yellow pages prospect fot the right type of client.

Ask a Canadian homeless person how he (there are very few homeless females) became homeless. He is unlikey to cite affirmitive action hiring laws forcing companies operating in Canada with more than 50 employees to hire a quota of visible minorities, who receive handsome assistance in settling here. He was unlikely directly displaced in the workforce by an immigrant; that person was further upstream in the chain of events. He, or she took a McJob, or a cut in pay, or changed careers -- and yes, he was better organiized and supported than the homeless person who didn't have a chance to bid for his new lesser job.

The origins of this treachery go back to the MacKenzie King regime, which found massive waves of immigration a dandy way to stay in office most of the time by breaking blocks of Conservative voters in the eaxct same urban areas the immigrants were choosing. The process was further accelerated by L Pearson and P E Trudeau who both lusted after the U N Secretary General job as the jewel in their career crown. Adding to this politically correct bulwark were the Canadian femminists who also had an agenda -- to empower women in the work force and demand equal opportunities, and nannies, housekeepers etc. to take care of their diminishing progeny.

Would anyone dare to discuss, or oppose these dramatic changes in Canadian life nowadays? Not many. There would be no gain for them, more likely vituperation, ostrsacism and career suicide. And politicians know they would risk their situations from the noise and threats hurled at them by the forces of the politically correct tyrants.

How about some bold souls, whose ancestors perhaps repulsed American and Fenian invaders from annexing Canada, demanding that an open, unrigged discussion on the immigration free-for-all take place -- and that any underhanded reprisals become just as much a hate crime as our Ottawa masters have set for those who contradict them?

Re: 14 ways to avoid being pink slipped - Page 3

johnconnolly — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:56:24 -0000

Good points. I could add a 15th one.

Don't join the wrong company in the first place. I experienced being one of 3 sales reps hired the same week at an IBM VAR not far from the big blue mother ship in Willowdale ON. This crowd had all the appearances of solvency and some success. It never occurred tyo me that they had no real experience with systems sales reps.

Of course there was no internet in 1985 - really way short of hiring a P.I. for me to assess them Also, they asked for no references which I thought at the time was efficient. It was in reality a hint of their planning abilility as a coprporation. We had no business cards or sales aids other than conversation for the first 2 months.

I set out to create a binder of MAPICS and our value added services, which was quite popular -- copies were frequently taken from my desk drawer. The more humane of their VPs offered, "Next time tell us what you are going to do." My supervisor seemed irked by it. I never submitted an expense reort for the copying charges, and ultimately found a good price for business cards, and quietly ordered them on my VISA.

I knew that my supervsor had it in for me when he made a big show of instructing me to set up a seminar on MAPICS - Manufacturing, Accounting, Production and Inventory Control; of course no budget was offered.

The end game was that he accused me of not earning the respect of my co-workers. I asked him if he could indicate who, and he reeled of about 6 names. I went to each and calmly asked if they had a problem with me. All answered in the negative. On termination day he read a memo to me in front of others, adding 2 IBM reps to the accusation. I asked if I could see it, he was rash enough to hand it to me, and I folded it up and put it in my pocket and left. It formed the core of my law suit, and earned me more untaxable money than they paid me for the 6 months I was there.

He had stirred up a real hornet's nest with our VAR, and lost their support, for this and other messes he crerated, and left a few months later.

Looking back, I realized that in hiring reps 3 at a time the intended only to keep one or two.

More recently, a well known financial services company - not a bank, offering me a sort of sales job was much more easily assessed by a simple search of Google 'for their name and town and litigation'. They had lots; most involving sale reps

Re: CDN - Case management system in BC improves service, security

johnconnolly — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:10:31 -0000

$181,000,000 ? Let's see, for that kind of dough, at $50,000 per unit, B C could have housed 3620 homeless people, children at risk, poverty stricken old folks etc. And no consultants, experts or scribbling pharisees skimming funds off the top.

If the BC Emperor of real estate would free up 1% of his massive land holdings, or bulldoze some of the white elephant public schools. The number of poor people doubles housed to over 7000+

One stiplulation, no condos, chalets or similar for Jack Layton & The Jade Empress he's had a good run in Toronto Public Housing.

And try this on for size, a new faculty of non-Cupe studies to graduate real live, poor adolescents/ 20somethings in property management, FOR PROFIT by Victoria. No current property managers allowed, written into the Constitution.

Re: CDN - Gmail gets social with Google Buzz

johnconnolly — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:38:56 -0000

I've got it. Even if I don't get it. How about the ex-Hitler Youth member Pope Benedict XIX, redeploys 2 underemployed orders: The Jesuits (guess who trained P E Trudeau, and maybe even les baby Trudeaux?) and the Dominicans, Auteurs of the Spanish Inquisition.

We'd have tradional Autocracy meets the PC World Champ & Social Engineer Par Excellence the Dominion of Canabis

I know, Califownya beat us to it

Re: CDN - Security vendor aims to boost government business

johnconnolly — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:10:47 -0000

Oh goodie, another unholy trinty of Dealer, OEM & Govt. At least Mr. Mohammed has come up with some new jargon - 'intersect' is great, it means whatever the Channel says it means. Let's just dump the really tired cliches like 'going forward' it has become retrogressive.

Take a gander at a Western Province which has offed its business incorporation services to a legal publisher and supplies vendor. My experience was that their blended staffs had a strong bias for long service with the corrections service. Any errors by clients (read detainees) with their user antagonistic on-line system which had no help function or documentation, would be met with fines and penalties, dished out by the ex-private sector workers. There was no evidence of any skilled or even experienced sales, marketing or customer support staff -- a technocrat's dream; all had to obey them, and not talk back for their $400 pieces of paper.

Re: Hackers peddling stolen Twitter accounts for $1,000 - Page 2

johnconnolly — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:41:06 -0000

Twits and Gamers caught in the same net! Who says there's no justice?

Also, it appears that The People's Rebublic of China & the estate of the USSR have some unfinished business for us from the 50s. A self appointed Apparachnik spokesman for the Workers Paradise has already threatened Canada that it is 'too weak to defend the Beafort Sea' - I say we mine it.

Lastly, you seem to omit our death cult friends the Islamics in all this sin and misery. We got a snotty email just after 911 which ended 'Viva Bin Laden'. I'm encouraging everyone to make the lives of the really obnoxious ones so hard in North America that they will go back to their point of origin an warn their friends

Re: CDN - Report: Oracle plans to hire more employees than it cuts from Sun

johnconnolly — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:30:12 -0000

Oracle should do an inventory of its own headcount to identify its authors of a disastorous giant Excel collection of loosely connected matrices, each with diabolical code memorization requirements for filling in blank fields.

The hapless client company on the receiving end was Danka Copiers of St Petersburg FL, and Toronto, Canada.
The business goal seems to have been to gather up the idle hours of Danka Sales Reps and turn them into clerical workers - much like eBay does. These reps carried an average of 500K / year sales quotas. The average sale was about 12K or a sale almost every week.

The overview of this Excel data base misuse was Order Entry/ Quotations/ Customer Lease Applications/ Service/ Toner/ meter charge/ sales commission calculation/ and of course no errors or crashing; because the rep could then just start over.

It never produced a sales order or invoice, because only about 15% of clients bought as opposed to leased. Sales Orders were fudged by a reverse calculation process which differed amongst reps. Nor could the rep sign up a client with the 'obsolete' sales order form, if a client at the needs analysis stage lets say, said "lets go ahead with this purchase".

I heard that the Oracle tab was $50,000,000 from Danka's Canadian Pres. and others. It was the prime caue of Danka's insolvency in 2007

Re: Ditch the blonde when advertising in Quebec - Page 2

johnconnolly — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 10:28:35 -0000

Surprise, the least feminine prople of all -- the feminists, have set about feminizing everything. Public schools? try to find a male role model in a school nowadays, there are almost no males teaching in public education. Coversely, homeless people in Canada, 100,000+, are almost all male -- their support group? The same one they had 100 years ago, The Sally Ann. Here feminists lose out to Canada's Immigration Industry, a great displacer of young males whose familes have defended Canada for over 200 years.

Post secondary education? The majority are females. Biggest criminal justice growth area? Arresting and jailing males for being unwise enough to engage in any assertive disagreement with a woman. That's right, the attorneys general, and police commissions in most provinces have by-passed the criminal code and the constitution, to set 'guidelines' for prosectuting any male who rauses his voice to a woman.

Wrongful dismissal engineered by co-workers, well you get the idea. Or do you?

Re: Underpaid, overworked help desk staff wait for tide to turn

johnconnolly — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:55:38 -0000

At the other end of the spectrum from these shiny success stories are, Canada's CUPE workers, the Canadian Banking Club's hordes of affirmitive action staff mandated by vote greedy polititions and their 7 figure campaign contributors the 30,000 immigration lawyers, consultants, touts and travel industry players who coined the top Politically Correct cliche 'diversity'. Their policy seems to be that the affirimitive action employee with the least command of english. grabs the phone first. I had one at Canada's oldest bank repeat 5 times 'Ya you want mortgage' when I asked about bridge financing.

I've had govt help desk people say things like 'No, I'm not going to give you my personal (paid for by the Feds) email address', and 'I don't have to tell you why my voice mail box is full'. Hanging up abruptly if bored or too busy is becoming common place, or going to see the supervisor and leaving the paying customer on hold - 40 minutes is my record - until they give up.

I have never had this from a small, owner operated company, but I have a list of 18 well known large companies from whom I won't buy, due to customer service surliness, condescending attitudes, lies and improper billing.

The all time worst experience recently, involved the riding office of the lady who used to be a Federal NDP MP, but retired at 40 odd, with at least 2 pensions and promptly picked up a BC MLA job to add another 100K/ year to her wealth. She instructed her staff to tell me that they couldn't help me when Victoria botched a business incorporation (actually done by a Toronto sub-contractor) who was emphatic that I could just go through the horrid, badly documented exercise again, and pay more whopping fees.

The moral is i guess, don't cross CUPE workers, they outrank all Govt. Staff

Re: CDN - PWGSC responds to growing procurement concerns

johnconnolly — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 11:33:58 -0000

'Ezikiel saw a wheel a rolling, way up in the middle of the air'.... Me too.

Whenever old By Town venutures into the privale sector, be it IT or Urea Formaldehyde insulation, SME vendors veteren sales and marketing dudes, and Data Processing consultants dust off their resumes and stand well back.

The most egregious example I was ever mugged into concerned the late and unlamented CGSB, their parent Supply & Services, and foster parent Industry & Technocracy.

Short version: four of the first toner cartridge remanufacturers in Canada conspired to enlist the feds in a plan to bring ISO quality standards to the very lucrative OEM rebuilder/ discounters of HP, Canon and Apple toner cartridges etc., who were riding high doing this work.

The choice of standards turned out to be ISO 2003 (not the year, this was in 1991). Unfortunately, 2003 addresses only warehousing and distibution -- a great choice for Canada Post and their Trudeau appointees; but not actual manufacturers, or in this case re-manufacturers.

These boys new their civil service well. All feds concerned had an unholy zeal to get out into the market and play the big shot. One CGSB consultant, armed with his state of the art, PHD in buying socks for the DND, popped into to my 4 person firm (please don't scoff, by many standards we were in the top 5% by ROI, % profit to sales or dscounted cash flow). His fee was $90 per hour, and he cautionned us that there was, and would not be, a 'fill in the blanks' template available. I kept relatively quiet, as we didn't trust fed business anyway, and when this boondoggle began to infect the private sector, assured new clients that we were 'working to CGSB ISO standards. I even whipped up a draft manual, most all clients liked it.

The last encounter concerned CGSB entering the retail market with toner products. I was threatened with being barred from all communications to the feds when I tried to discuss this conflict of interest with their head mandarin, thanked him cordially, and continued on never talking to feds again. Our sales & profit growth continued on its Delta ascent until I sold the operation in 2002, for 32x what I had first invested.

'And the big wheel ran by faith, and the little wheel ran by the Grace of God' -- Traditional African American Spiritual.

Re: CDN - Obama selects tech veteran for top cybersecurity post

johnconnolly — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 12:40:56 -0000

Hear, hear. It was unsettling to learn that Islamic terrorists have hacked U S Satellite microcomputers, and the People's Republic of China is no slouch in cyber-espionage. Canada is not exempt either, a nebish relic of the old Soviet Union was seen on CTV News last month crowing that Canada was 'too weak' to defend the North West Passage. One hopes that the DND and External Affairs have the motivation and ability to monitor Russian and other agressive nation's adventures in the Beaufort Sea. In the middle ages huge iron chains, with links too heavy for any man, or wooden ship to lift, were strung across the Bosporus at Constantinople and other similar key river defence points. It would be nice to think that the nation has modern digital defences to disable invading ships and vehicles.

Re: CDN - Sun's demand for personal information angers partner community

johnconnolly — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:04:21 -0000

We really know our worth, the Sun and I

Re: 10 tips to write a r�m�hat gets noticed by recruiting software - Page 2

johnconnolly — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:59:02 -0000

I get it. The most efficient way to jobdom is to plant all the buzz words, acronyms, derivatives and slogans company X could be turning into cliches, in 4 point white at the top of the resume and covering letter pages.

Then when you get the interview, politely suggest 'I say old boy, i have a boffo, empowering, carbon footprint, outside the box, culturally sensitive, paradigm, Alpha2, ERP, MRPII..........Powerpoint Dullard which is only 30 seconds'. Then before the HR rube can blink, whip open your Blackberry and dazzle him.

Of course you've larded the tiny Power Point full of subliminal messages, hinting at blackmail for mysterious character flaws if you don't get the coder job. Whamo, you're on your way to CIO, CFO and even CEO by the end of the month.

Re: The X Factor of Successful Startups: Love

johnconnolly — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:18:00 -0000

The irony is that the burning desire for proprietorship, not being intimidated by reactionary critics and nay sayers, as well as thinking without regard for the box, or the box's gate keepers; and above all convincing clients, suppliers and service providers of your total, 24/7, commitment, and sincerity to them and to your idea -- the ingredients which can secure your success; are the exact same ones which will get you fired as an employee.

When you succeed, you will be deemed 'lucky'. It's just like Kipling said over 100 years ago, 'If you can meet with triumph and disaster, and treat these two imposters just the same'....

Re: Data usage will drive mobile phone penetration in Canada, experts say

johnconnolly — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:05:44 -0000

Canadian Cel Phone "Industry experts" should compare their sky high prices to international rates, likewise their diabolical contracts, and in particular the nasty habits tyrants like Telus have, of gobbling up a client's minutes with asinine, useless 'important' messages.

This tired, PR flack piece seems to be regularly published every fews months. I don't ever recall getting any good news by cel phone, and became very tired of traffic progress reports from chronically late contractors or meeting attendees.

I removed the battery from my cel 2 years ago, and will likely sell it on Craigslist soon. Most fads generally lose the interest of adults when the 6 year olds adopt it. Then we have the driving and chatting risks and legal censure; and the brain cancer question.

I might be interested in a business to discount a prime example of Canada's chronic over pricing, by connecting Canadians close to the border to a U S service, however. It would also nibble away at Canadian's largest expense - taxes. Or one to block loud mouth users nearby.

Re: http://mypalsatan.com/feedback.php

johnconnolly — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:33:05 -0000

How about you introduce Satan's Crystal Meth buddy, Uber-AntiChrist. who is not just a local Satan, but has The Andromeda Galaxy in his territory also.

Shit, Windows Defender says I just got 2 virus's from you. This is great!

Re: Fighting first party fraud in Canada -- an expert shows how

johnconnolly — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:55:11 -0000

Oh, Boo Hoo, the poor Canadian Banking Club. How about their Credit Card Balance Protection racket? You have to opt out by finding a tiny clause saying so in their labyrinthine rules and regulations sheet printed in an almost unreadable 2 point blotchy font. I don't complain to Ombudsmen, cosy self regulating groups like the investment dealers Assn. or BBB thsese days.

I go right to Consumer & Corporate Affairs or the cops.

Re: SMS etiquette: Six rules of thumb for text messaging

johnconnolly — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 09:41:42 -0000

How about do not chip away at the English (or other) language by using Pidgeon English and Creole or asinine acronyms?

Re: CDN - Nortel's circle of life- Page 2

johnconnolly — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 12:34:37 -0000

Nortel and it's owner Bell Canada always had a fatal flaw - call it hubris. I signed on with Northern Telecom Systems Inc sales in 1979. They had gone on a billion dollar buying spree - big bucks in those days, just prior; buying up Data 100 of Minneapolis, a mfr. of big 1000 line/ per minute line printers, Remote Job Entry Terminals and Keybatch Systems where up to 16 operators would key over 15,000 characters per hour of order entry, payroll etc. for companies to ensure same day data entry. Other acquisitions were Sycor, Ann Arbour MI - intelligent clusters of terminals passing off entries for processing and remote communicating, to what were then considered powerful 512K RAM, 10 MB disk storage processors and Comterm Pte Claire QC, more line printers and datacomm protocals.

All these were supposed to be connected to Nortel PBX's to achieve the Holy Grail - combined voice and data communications. It never worked in my time, the division was wound up in the early 1980s, and the investment lost more profoundly than PetroCan's boondoggle . One of the main contributing factors was Nortel's field engineers, a firebrand group, which though not actually unionized, made the Teamsters Union look obliging, and fought to fence off every square inch and task on their turf, kiboshing sales with abandon.

Re: Upgrading to Windows 7 from XP - a comprehensive guide

johnconnolly — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:14:38 -0000

Upgrading from Win 98 to XP was no walk in the park either. I had a perfectly good HP G85 Officejet MF and had to ditch it 2 years ago, as XP was erratically not recognizing it, and crashing it about once a week. The Brother MFC-465CN I repaced it with was like a baby Microsoft, it's driver roared into everything and tried to take over; dominating the screen weith useless messages and grabbing all phone calls on the 4th ring so my answering machine couldn't take them.- solution keep it turned off when not printing, copying or faxing At least it's easy to refill the little ink cartridges. I paid $30 for about 300 Ml of CMYK inks and have most of it left after printing about 1/2 case of paper

Any problems I have with MS I resolve at Google - the last place I'd try would be their site

Re: CDN - Ericsson looks for government help with Nortel

johnconnolly — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:47:09 -0000

That's just great. One of the oldest and once largest manufacturers in Canada, built with the net profits from Canadian's telephone bills for 110 years, will be sold to foreigners, who want more government grants. After being run into the ground by foreign investors, the directors they installed and the U S management team they imported/ installed in the U S, will now be sold to a Swedish company, whose first move is to ask Ottawa for more money

I strongly recommend that a 'Government Grant Act' or similar be drafted to make certain that ANY monetary assistance, or tax breaks from ANY level of Canadian government be tied to a lien on equipment,patents, R & D, customer lists, and any other assets. And that such a lien will be invoked in the event of a sale or insolvency; with a 100% Canadian buyer being given first and sole option to purchase all items involved.

No more run away companies like Victor A Rice's Varity Corp. hauling Massey Fergusen's production equipment off to Buffalo N Y while in receipt of Govt. assistance, or predatory U S shareholders groups de-Canadianizing organizations which are critical to Canada's well being and prosperity

I know, aspects of the above are unconstitutional. O.K.. lets put this policy right into the constitution.