Disqus - Latest Comments for Joe Levi

Re: The Most Bizzar Political Message I’ve Ever Heard

Joe Levi — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:36:48 -0000

I used to work for that nut-job. Funny enough, I blogged about the same thing!

Thanks for spreading the word!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: 10-Year Class Reunion

Joe Levi — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:44:46 -0000

Apparently the ShutterFly album was taken down, and the Yahoo Group no longer exists...

If anyone has a copy of the pics, please contact me.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: 10-Year Class Reunion

Joe Levi — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:50:44 -0000

UPDATE:
I fond the pics at shuttefly: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/pictures?a=6...

Still no Yahoo! Group though.. :(

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: What’s your IQ?

Joe Levi — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 11:45:00 -0000

Way to go, Darby!

Re: Disposable Fountain Pen

Joe Levi — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 17:44:00 -0000

"Florida",

I'm a web developer by profession, so I do stumble across new templates frequently.

Sorry for the confusion...

Oh, I think you're a blog spammer, but since your submissions contain links they're auto-magically filtered and edited for me. If that's your only reason for being here, you won't gain any relevance by spamming my blog. If you're here for legitimate reasons, please accept my humble apologies.

Re: Don’t Buy CRAP

Joe Levi — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 16:38:36 -0000

Another good read: McKay's Rant Box: Good Riddance RIAA

Re: The RIAA is ruining music… and setting it free

Joe Levi — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 22:41:10 -0000

Yeah, lame lame lame... that's all I have to say about that. Free publicity just isn't what it used to be.

Support the little guy! How about an "Untained by the RIAA" campaign by indie artists?

Re: The RIAA is ruining music… and setting it free

Joe Levi — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 16:39:12 -0000

Another good read: McKay's Rant Box: Good Riddance RIAA

Re: Wired magazine agrees with me

Joe Levi — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 16:40:07 -0000

Another good read: McKay's Rant Box: Good Riddance RIAA

Re: Illegal Immigration and Anchor Babies

Joe Levi — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:14:43 -0000

Very true and good points. The intent of my post was to spur intellectual debate, and I'm glad someone posted their thoughts on the matter in this forum.

That said, I do think that regardless of whether or not the child is born in the United States, the parents should still be arrested by any law enforcement and held for the INS and mandatory deportation.

The child, since he/she is a legal citizen, would then be placed in protective custody/foster care until (1) the parents became naturalized citizens (no preferential treatment), or (2) turned 18.

This would also be public knowledge and stiffly enforced; thereby sending a message to the illegal community:

If you're not here legally and want to keep your kids, go back to your home country and come in the legal way.

If you're planning on coming in illegally, you're risking loosing your future kids.

Thoughts?

Re: Schanze Criticizes Governor, Draper City, after Sentencing

Joe Levi — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 21:32:24 -0000

Hi Lisa, Darby does frequent my website so he may stumble across your not... but you could always contact him directly via his site: www.DNSgardner.com

Thanks for the ping! It's always nice to catch up with old friends! Don't suppose you have a personal/family website to refer us to?

Re: Business Trip to Dallas, Texas

Joe Levi — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 14:50:22 -0000

Sure enough, it was fun, I learned a lot, ate some really good food, got better acquanted with my boss and a co-worker, got to impress the pants off the CIO upon our return, and I checked off a few items from my "Things to do before I die" list.

All said, I'm glad to be home. I missed my family and friends.

Re: Zune Theme for Windows: Broken out of the Box

Joe Levi — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 14:41:20 -0000

Nemoforone,

I have absolutely no idea what your post has to do with Iran, Iraq, current military policy, or the price of tea in China, but that's definitely one idea. I don't know how much stock I'd personally put in it, but I won't belittle your opinion. ;)

Re: Zune Theme for Windows: Broken out of the Box

Joe Levi — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 19:03:34 -0000

Steve,

I think you're right, a Google Search on “What about the possibility of pulling out of Iraq” turns up a few posts by Nemoforone, so I'm with you, I think it may be a Google-Bomb tactic and I've modified his post so as not to be contributory.

Thanks for the heads up!!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: The solution to the problem: Exterminate White People

Joe Levi — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 22:46:42 -0000

Related links:
<ul><li>Carolina Journal</li><li>Michelle Malkin</li>
<li>Wikipedia</li>
</ul>

Re: The solution to the problem: Exterminate White People

Joe Levi — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 11:00:43 -0000

Big Ol'Sarge, Please don't think that I'm advocating the extermination of any race, I'm just reporting on one guy that thinks that's the solution. And, my most sincere thanks for your service in the Armed Forces. We need more patriots like you.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: The solution to the problem: Exterminate White People

Joe Levi — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 11:05:54 -0000

aThinker,

You're half right... America is not a country (though it the erroneous abbreviation for the United States of America -- or "These United States of America" to use the language of our Founding Fathers).

The continents, however, are North America and South America, with the region between the two called Central America.

More to your point, yes, I'm calling for a UNITED United States of America. I'm afraid you may be right about being too focused on group ideas and minority group interests, and that we place those ahead of really important things.

There is definitely something to be said for protecting the voice of the minority (in this context minority is a group, not a unit of race/ethnicity), but doing so to spite the majority, or even to spite another minority group is wrong -- maybe not illegal, but very possibly morally wrong.

United we stand, racially-hyphenated we fall.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Rest in Peace, James Kim

Joe Levi — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 14:09:45 -0000

Re: RIAA: “Artists Paid Too Much”

Joe Levi — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 14:12:44 -0000

Related DIGG on how you, the listener, can help the right against the RIAA.

Re: Going Green: Living Walls

Joe Levi — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 19:26:21 -0000

Another related site: http://www.naturalbuildingnetwork.org/

Re: Going Green: Living Walls

Joe Levi — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 22:39:01 -0000

Another related site: http://inhabitat.com/2007/01/15/vertical-garden...

Re: Pachelbel’s Canon: The foundation of oh so many songs

Joe Levi — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 16:23:35 -0000

Thanks for the tip, Ellen! I've gone back up and correct the original post.

Re: Pachelbel’s Canon: The foundation of oh so many songs

Joe Levi — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 13:56:08 -0000

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy this one: http://www.joelevi.com/blog/index.php/2007/04/0...

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Pachelbel’s Canon: The foundation of oh so many songs

Joe Levi — Tue, 08 May 2007 13:46:55 -0000

Nauti,

I did a Google search on "lyrics 'there was a time when I was so broken hearted'" and it looks like you're right! Thanks!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Pachelbel’s Canon: The foundation of oh so many songs

Joe Levi — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 17:02:11 -0000

Here's another one: All Together Now by The Farm, on "Spartacus"

Re: Pachelbel’s Canon: The foundation of oh so many songs

Joe Levi — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:07:16 -0000

Thanks, Joerg! Although Rihanna's is only the first half the the cannon, it's definitely there and a very interesting take on it!

I was listening to Pandora today and heard Shine by Cyndi Lauper on her Shine LP, it's a much more subtle cannon thread, but it's in there, particularly in the opening few measures of the song.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Pachelbel’s Canon: The foundation of oh so many songs

Joe Levi — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:06:44 -0000

@Koletas,

It took me a while to find the song, but sure enough, the guitar solo in the middle is classic Cannon. If you listen closely the string running through the whole song is Cannon, too!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: How to Protect Your Email

Joe Levi — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 13:54:28 -0000

Pete, yes, I agree! Especially when using intelligent spam filters, the weighting of a wanted email could be increased with the presence of a valid email cert. Note the use of the term "Valid" in there. This means the mail server, or the mail client would need to validate the email cert, and disregard/demote any invalid certs.

That's the only complication that I can see with better SPAM handling through email certs.

On a side note, after having published this article, I stumbled across some articles and eventually a Wikipedia Entry regarding a secret "_NSAKEY" build in to every version of Windows from NT 4 on up.

Conspiracy theories abound, and Microsoft has denied that the National Security Agency has anything to do with this key, but the question raised in my mind is both malignant and benign...

I do not think this key allows the NSA or any other government agency the capability to hack in to anyone's computer (which is one of the more popular of conspiracy theories).

However, since it is located in the same API .dll library as the encryption libraries to encrypt S/MIME emails, perhaps this is the public side of a "universal key," the private side of which could (theoretically) unlock any message encrypted using the Microsoft ADVAPI.dll routines.

I find the latter of the two usages to be much more plausible, and much more concerning than the former.

There is hope, however, as identified in this article.

Anyone with more input/ideas is invited to comment!

Re: Proposed: Solution to Win the Iraq War

Joe Levi — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 15:59:49 -0000

DieNowForPeace, you call me a "naive, fool you are" and my "3 step suggestion" approach "childish," yet you don't rebut any of the points. Name calling won't get any of us anywhere, please, I invite your constructive criticism of the 3 problems that I outlined, and your suggestions to solve them.

hellinabucket, you asked why I wouldn't enlist/draft all of us, dress us in uniforms and march us off to war. Simply put, I'm not an elected official, I'm not a military official, I don't have the authority to do so -- nor would I want to. You then imply the I'm racist with your "decapitation for people that don't look like us" reference. I don't know what you look like, nor do you know what I look like. I don't know your race, color, creed, or religion for that matter -- nor do you know mine. Making such statements is simply inflammatory -- where are your constructive remarks? If you're an American you have the freedom of speech and expression guaranteed, rather than flinging mud why not think about the ideas that I expressed (also guaranteed) and debate them with me. It's obvious that we don't see eye to eye on the matter, but by your failure to illustrate (constructively) what you think is wrong with my ideas, and what ideas you have then aren't we all just spinning our tires?

- Joe Levi, www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Interesting Perspective

Joe Levi — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 17:45:12 -0000

Maybe not hit with bats... after all, doesn't that just make us the terrorist?

Castrated, yes. Remove those "wimpy" genes from the pool so they don't get passed on to the next generation. ;)

Re: Window Vista: An Epic Saga of Love, Hate, and Incompatibility

Joe Levi — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 16:42:19 -0000

Darby, it's really not as bad as it sounds... well, okay, maybe it is...

But I'm so completely impressed by everything else that it (amazingly) overshadows the difficulties that I had in setting it up.

As of now I have a printer driver that's not supported (but works after you acknowlege an "Epson is stupid because they don't have up-to-date drivers" message), a modem that seems flakey (or not, further troubleshooting will tell), a TV Tuner card that doesn't have Vista drivers (blame nVidia for that one), and an XBOX (original) that won't connect (still working on that one).

All told, not too bad... Much easier than the migration from Win3.1 to Win95, and much much much easier than the migration from Win98se to WinXP.

I've played with Linux (and no offense to my Linux brothers out there), it's just not for me.

Now, here's what I did wrong... actually, let me 'blog about that in my next post... I'll add a link to it from this thread when I do.

- Joe

BTW: Good to hear from you, Darby!

Re: Window Vista: An Epic Saga of Love, Hate, and Incompatibility

Joe Levi — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:45:46 -0000

Hi "Other Joe"!

I'm VERY glad to hear that not only am I not alone in the "XBOX (original) Extender Snafu" but that the problem is inherent, not something you or I did wrong.

I'm disappointed with Microsoft's handling of us early adopters, but sometimes that's the price we pay for being out there on the edge.

As an update to the original story, I have three AverMedia TV Tuners on their way (1 a standard def, 2 are hi-def). Hopefully these will arrive before the weekend.

Also, a friend of a buddy of mine won an XBOX 360 at a Superbowl party that she "has not use for" and is selling to me at a discounted price. Again, hopefully this will also happen before the weekend.

Stay tuned!

Re: HOW TO: Impliment DIGG’s new “Smart Button” in WordPress

Joe Levi — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:45:05 -0000

While you're at it, check out BlogHerald's WordPress Wednesday article. A must-read for any WordPress blogger.

Re: HOW TO: Impliment DIGG’s new “Smart Button” in WordPress

Joe Levi — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 17:16:13 -0000

Another good link for you: http://lorelle.wordpress.com/

Re: HOW TO: Impliment DIGG’s new “Smart Button” in WordPress

Joe Levi — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:18:19 -0000

Matt,

Glad to have helped! If you find anything similar, or have "spruced it up" a bit, please post it back here for the rest of us to benefit from.

BTW: you've got some crazy funny stuff on your site (LSFW, but funny!).

Re: HOW TO: Impliment DIGG’s new “Smart Button” in WordPress

Joe Levi — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 15:43:00 -0000

Darren,

Glad to be of assistance. BTW, you've got some good bits on your site, too!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Why is the Palm Treo 320×320 and the Windows Treo 240×240?

Joe Levi — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 16:04:42 -0000

Randy,

The difficulty that you describe seems mostly to do with the application running on terminal services rather than as a "native application" on the Pocket PC.

Doing so obviously has its advantages (and disadvantages).

I'd begin by looking at the resizer that you mentioned. Does it "sniff" the client's screen resolution and dynamically re-size? If so, can you add a label to the form that displays the client's detected resolution? You might find that the TSAC (on the Pocket PC) is reporting it's desktop incorrectly, and the sizer is then behaving "properly" based on the incorrect information.

Then again, it may be something else.

An alternative option might be deploying a web service that a custom Pocket PC / SmartPhone application could tie into, thereby allowing you to code to a specific resolution, but still allow sharing of a common data source.

(BTW: I attempted to email you at the address you provided, but it bounced. I'm hoping you come back to this article and read my reply.)

Re: Linksys WRT54GP2 “Router still restarting. Please wait a moment.”

Joe Levi — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 16:02:54 -0000

Ulrich,

Have you made any progress with your router? If not, what are the steps that you're taking to re-flash the firmware? Are you getting an error, and if so at what point?

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Salt Lake Killing Spree Stopped by a “Good Guy with a Gun”

Joe Levi — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 17:09:11 -0000

And now Salt Lake City's mayor, "Rocky" Anderson is throwing his hat into the ring and accusing anyone that mentions Talovic's religious background (Muslim) is a "hate-monger," being "devisive," and "dividing our community."

Ironically, he mentioned the shooter's age and sex in his interview. Isn't this just "hate-mongering" on the basis of age and sex? Read about it here

Re: Salt Lake Killing Spree Stopped by a “Good Guy with a Gun”

Joe Levi — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:06:45 -0000

Here's a video interview with one of the two guys responsible for helping to stop the killing spree. It was featured at http://www.usconcealedcarry.com/public/962.cfm :

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/UYam1pczNeM&rel=1&border=0"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/UYam1pczNeM&rel=1&border=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit’s Accordion Control: Databinding

Joe Levi — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 13:37:04 -0000

VJ, yes, in fact, one can run an Accordion Control within a Tab Container: http://www.joelevi.com/blog/index.php/2007/07/2...

Re: ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit’s Accordion Control: Databinding

Joe Levi — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 12:50:42 -0000

Elizabeth, that's a strange behavior. Are you certain that when you toggle from code view to design view that it's actually deleting the contents of the Accordion control and not just "hiding the contents?

In other words, if you switch back to code view is it actually gone?

I've noticed on the Accordion and (the older version of the) Tab Container controls that the design view implementation shows only the control, not the contents of it (which makes it a bugger to work in visually). Fortunately the contents have still been "there" and accessible in the code view -- at least in VS Standard and VS Professional.

Let us know if VS Express is different.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Salt Lake Mayor “Rocky” a Hate-Monger or a Hypocrite?

Joe Levi — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 16:38:46 -0000

Interesting DIGG article: http://www.digg.com/politics/Mayor_of_Salt_Lake...

Re: Unlocking Your Cell Phone: Legal Since November 2006

Joe Levi — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 11:19:09 -0000

Quida,

Cellphone service providers don't WANT to provide the unlock codes/processes as a rule, but that doesn't mean that they can't or won't.

If they pulled the whole "going out of the U.S.A." trick on you, just tell them that you are considering traveling abroad for your vacation and if so will be picking up a SIM overseas (of course, this would mean you have a GSM phone, which you may not). They shouldn't have a problem at this point.

Regarding 3rd party unlocking, in most cases you signed a contract with your cellphone service provider which may (or may not) limit how you can unlock your phone. Since this falls under contract law it would not be relevant to the LOC rule.

HOWEVER, if your contract doesn't limit/prohibit you from unlocking, the LOC rule provides that you CAN use a 3rd party solution to unlock your phone.

Regarding giving your phone to someone else, again, unless your contract states otherwise, it's YOUR phone and you can do with it what YOU wish. Otherwise it's THEIR phone and you're just renting it.

Another argument for ONLY buying open/un-locked phones.

Let me know how things turn out, as well as who your cellphone service provider and cellphone make/model are, maybe someone reading this post can help you out.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: John Edwards: Elizabeth’s Cancer Has Returned; Incurable

Joe Levi — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 15:25:46 -0000

AsC,

Sorry about that, I normally cite my sources.

Since this is a breaking story and this post is being updated as information (and additional articles surface) I had not appropriately cited. The quote isn't directly from your site, it reflects the wording that I remember when hearing the press conference, but I do thank you for the reminder to site my sources.

I've updated the blockquote with a citation and have provided a "related link" to your article.

Re: Coolest Whiteboard EVER!

Joe Levi — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 13:09:35 -0000

Yeah? We had something like that when I worked at BOWG Advertising... It was a proximity whiteboard that would record pen (and color) strokes... Of course it didn't have the way cool application running in the background that would animate and stuff, but that's gotta be the MIT "coolness" part of it, right? ;)

A co-worker of mine says they've got one up in the CS department at WSU, they've been trying to get it to work (unsuccessfully) for over a year now... how sad. ;)

Re: KSL Reports on Energy Drinks, sort of

Joe Levi — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 12:22:15 -0000

Matt,

You're right about that not wanting KSL to raise my kids. I know what my kids drink (they're only 7 and under, so it's not hard right now). I try to steer them away from anything even as hard as "soda pop". (Glad to see you agree, Hazard!)

It's the shoddy, alarmist reporting by KSL that's gotten my feathers ruffled.

Casey, give it to your NEIGHBORS pets and see if they start walking funny... ;)

Re: KSL Reports on Energy Drinks, sort of

Joe Levi — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 13:23:18 -0000

Trent,

Thank you for helping to illustrate the point.

Another inference one could make from your co-workers statement is that "people who do not read drink labels ALSO do not read news headlines."

The headline read "Some Energy Drinks Contain Alcohol," your co-worker just glazed over the word "some."

Thanks again for the illustration, and I hope to see more of your comments on the blog! Welcome!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Why Hydrogen Fuel Cells Will Fail

Joe Levi — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 23:17:46 -0000

It's also handy to read a post before responding to it... ;)

The article wasn't about Hydrogen in general, but about Hydrogen Fuel Cells, particularly when applied to vehicle technology.

Present "hydrogen extraction" methods (whether from water or natural gas) is simply not energy efficient. It takes a great amount of energy (which has to be produced somewhere, right?) to split elements into more basic forms.

Hydrogen "cracking" bacteria sounds like a great idea! Do you have any sources that you can cite for my readers and I to look into the near-term viability of this concept? I'm honestly intrigued!

Being a bit of a "recreational conspiracy theorist" I feel there will most likely be a large push-back by the energy conglomerates that will restrict or reduce the likelihood of a decentralized (hence "reduced control") energy ideal. It's certainly romantic though.

Yes, I believe that human knowledge and understanding will continue to increase. I'd certainly hope so.

My post, rather than a rant, was designed to illustrate that we have the current technology and capacity to implement a class of vehicles that runs entirely via an electric motor powered by batteries. The batteries can then be charged either via the grid (plug-in) and/or via some other supplemental engine (to charge the batteries, not drive the tires directly).

Furthermore, my post was designed to illustrate that Hydrogen Fuel Cells operate best at specific energy outputs, but are very inefficient outside that range, therefore, should we endevour to put an HFC into a vehicle it should be run at its optimum power output -- charging the batteries that power the motor that drives the vehicle.

Thank you for the stimulating discussion! It's one of the best I've had in a while, and I do look forward to you providing me with some links so I can do additional research!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: “Hurt” as sung by Kermit the Frog

Joe Levi — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 18:56:15 -0000

Bryce,

You didn't know I liked NIN? I'm a veritable NIN-compoop! ;)

I grew up on Pretty Hate Machine, completely love it. Downward Spiral was quite a bit darker, but I still picked up a single (Further Down the Spiral, I think).

So now you know. ;)

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: “Hurt” as sung by Kermit the Frog

Joe Levi — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 13:53:45 -0000

If you guys liked "Sad Kermit" be sure you check out this post: http://www.joelevi.com/blog/index.php/2007/04/0...

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Music Mashups

Joe Levi — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 14:10:44 -0000

My buddy David (aka F34R) pointed me in the direction of a "how to make your own music mashup" tutorial (hosted by Sue Teller):
<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/A4uyN5rQbbU"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/A4uyN5rQbbU" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

Re: Music Mashups

Joe Levi — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 11:41:21 -0000

Darby, Glad you found a new "Song of the Moment!" I'm really digging "Party Ben's" work.

Misty, thanks for pointing out www.BootieNYC.com, I'll check them out when I get home from work!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Music Mashups

Joe Levi — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:18:20 -0000

Thanks for the list, Mike!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Music Mashups

Joe Levi — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 13:30:58 -0000

Here's a mashup of NIN and The Beatles: http://www.michaelmartine.com/2007/02/24/come-c...

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: How Fast Can You Type?

Joe Levi — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 20:14:41 -0000

Sweet! Was that on a "straight QWERTY" keyboard? Ergo? DVORAK?

Re: Virginia Tech policy created an “ideal killing ground for criminals”

Joe Levi — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 15:20:30 -0000

Chair_tard, could you please cite your source for this statistic?

According to my data<sup>1</sup>:

This myth, stemming from a superficial "study" of firearm accidents in the Cleveland, Ohio, area, represents a comparison of 148 accidental deaths (including suicides) to the deaths of 23 intruders killed by home owners over a 16-year period. 2

Gross errors in this and similar "studies"--with even greater claimed ratios of harm to good--include: the assumption that a gun hasn't been used for protection unless an assailant dies; no distinction is made between handgun and long gun deaths; all accidental firearm fatalities were counted whether the deceased was part of the "family" or not; all accidents were counted whether they occurred in the home or not, while self-defense outside the home was excluded; almost half the self-defense uses of guns in the home were excluded on the grounds that the criminal intruder killed may not have been a total stranger to the home defender; suicides were sometimes counted and some self-defense shootings misclassified. Cleveland's experience with crime and accidents during the study period was atypical of the nation as a whole and of Cleveland since the mid-1970s. Moreover, in a later study, the same researchers noted that roughly 10% of killings by civilians are justifiable homicides. 3

The "guns in the home" myth has been repeated time and again by the media, and anti-gun academics continue to build on it. In 1993, Dr. Arthur Kellermann of Emory University and a number of colleagues presented a study that claimed to show that a home with a gun was much more likely to experience a homicide. 4 However, Dr. Kellermann selected for his study only homes where homicides had taken place--ignoring the millions of homes with firearms where no harm is done--and a control group that was not representative of American households. By only looking at homes where homicides had occurred and failing to control for more pertinent variables, such as prior criminal record or histories of violence, Kellermann et al. skewed the results of this study. Prof. Kleck wrote that with the methodology used by Kellermann, one could prove that since diabetics are much more likely to possess insulin than non-diabetics, possession of insulin is a risk factor for diabetes. Even Dr. Kellermann admitted this in his study: "It is possible that reverse causation accounted for some of the association we observed between gun ownership and homicide." Law Professor Daniel D. Polsby went further, "Indeed the point is stronger than that: 'reverse causation' may account for most of the association between gun ownership and homicide. Kellermann's data simply do not allow one to draw any conclusion." 5

Research conducted by Professors James Wright and Peter Rossi, 6 for a landmark study funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, points to the armed citizen as possibly the most effective deterrent to crime in the nation. Wright and Rossi questioned over 1,800 felons serving time in prisons across the nation and found:

81% agreed the "smart criminal" will try to find out if a potential victim is armed. 74% felt that burglars avoided occupied dwellings for fear of being shot. 80% of "handgun predators" had encountered armed citizens. 40% did not commit a specific crime for fear that the victim was armed. 34% of "handgun predators" were scared off or shot at by armed victims. 57% felt that the typical criminal feared being shot by citizens more than he feared being shot by police.

Professor Kleck estimates that annually 1,500-2,800 felons are legally killed in "excusable self-defense" or "justifiable" shootings by civilians, and 8,000-16,000 criminals are wounded. This compares to 300-600 justifiable homicides by police. Yet, in most instances, civilians used a firearm to threaten, apprehend, shoot at a criminal, or to fire a warning shot without injuring anyone.

Based on his extensive independent survey research, Kleck estimates that each year Americans use guns for protection from criminals more than 2.5 million times annually. 7 U.S. Department of Justice victimization surveys show that protective use of a gun lessens the chance that robberies, rapes, and assaults will be successfully completed while also reducing the likelihood of victim injury. Clearly, criminals fear armed citizens.

1 http://www.guncite.com/10myths.htm
2 Rushforth, et al., "Accidental Firearm Fatalities in a Metropolitan County, " 100 American Journal of Epidemiology 499 (1975).
3 Rushforth, et al., "Violent Death in a Metropolitan County," 297 New England Journal of Medicine 531, 533 (1977).
4 Kellermann, et al., "Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home," New England Journal of Medicine 467 (1993).
5 Polsby, "The False Promise of Gun Control," The Atlantic Monthly, March 1994.
6 Wright and Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms (N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter, 1986).
7 Gary Kleck and Mark Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Handgun," The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 86 (1995): 150.

Re: Virginia Tech policy created an “ideal killing ground for criminals”

Joe Levi — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 17:10:17 -0000

Chair_tard,

The "spirit of the 2nd Amendment" states that a "well regulated militia" is "necessary to the security of a free State". The definition of "militia" being "all able-bodied men aged 18 to 40." The Amendment goes on to say "the right of the people" (not the "right of the militia", or the "right of the National Guard").

So, yes, the Founding Father's DID believe that the right to keep and bear arms DID (and DOES) apply to the people. In fact, the original wording of what was to become the Second Amendment, as brought to the floor to the first session of the first congress of the U.S. House of Representatives was:

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person."

Guns are equally prohibited in England and Australia, yet these two countries have much higher rates of violent crimes than the US as a whole.

Your UPENN statistics do not differentiate between legal and illegal firearms kept in a home and includes crack-houses and drug-traffickers. When you look at the relationship between law-abiding gun-owners and firearm deaths (and remove military and law-enforcement "in-the-line-of-duty" incidents) you find there is an inverse correlation, meaning, if you're a law-abiding citizen and have a firearm, you and your family are LESS likely to die in a gun-related incident.

Your Riley Hospital statistics count "children" as persons up-to (but not including) age 21, and include gang-related shootings. If you break out gang-related shootings and remove 18-20 year-olds, the number is ridiculously low, meaning the only reason that data was included was to artificially bias the statistics.

Your point regarding the 2nd Amendment's purpose being the protection against threats to democracy and the state is ABSOLUTELY correct. The Founding Fathers could in no way have known about today's tragedy, but had the protections they built in to the Bill of Rights not been infringed upon by Virginia Tech's "no guns" policy, how "inviting" would the campus have been to someone with mass homicide on his mind?

Virginia Tech CREATED a "Criminal Safe Zone" with their policy. The police took TWO HOURS to respond before the killing stopped. TWO HOURS where the students, staff, and faculty were at the mercy of a criminal who didn't abide by the school's policy.

Thank you for the good discussion!
- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Virginia Tech policy created an “ideal killing ground for criminals”

Joe Levi — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 17:52:06 -0000

The Founding Fathers deliberately DID NOT say "muzzle loaders" or "long guns" or "rifles" (or any other era firearms), they didn't even exclude cannons. Because they didn't EXCLUDE anything, says that they did so for a reason.

S.W.A.T. and B.A.T.F.E. all carry "automatic assault rifles, and handguns that carry 15 round [magazines] and other devistating weopons [sic]" aren't they the true threat?

I have a single firearm to my name (legally purchased). It is a concealable Glock .45 with a capacity of 10+1. I have never killed anyone with it. I've never even pointed it at anything more dangerous than a paper target.

I would like to add a shotgun to my self-defense options, criminals seem to hate the sound of a round being racked into a shotgun, and very often turn and run just at the sound of it.

It's not what ~I~ think about the 2nd Amendment and what it entitles me to do. The Bill of Rights is just that, irrevocable RIGHTS. It says that the right to keep (own, store) and bear (carry, have with you) SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED. That's pretty hefty wording. The Founding Fathers did NOT say "the right of the of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed... except in churches, grocery stores, or schools." If you have a problem with it, perhaps you should take it up with them. The Bill of Rights speaks for itself.

1,800 felons serving time in prisons across the nation were surveyed and 81% agreed the “smart criminal” will try to find out if a potential victim is armed. 74% felt that burglars avoided occupied dwellings for fear of being shot. 80% of “handgun predators” had encountered armed citizens. 40% did not commit a specific crime for fear that the victim was armed. 34% of “handgun predators” were scared off or shot at by armed victims. 57% felt that the typical criminal feared being shot by citizens more than he feared being shot by police.

I don't have an "infatuation with guns" I have a deep rooted belief that since the Supreme Court has found that it IS NOT the duty or responsibility for any law enforcement officer or agency to protect the individual that we, as law abiding citizens have the responsibility to provide for our own protection and the protection of our family. The statistic that 81% of criminals surveyed agreed the “smart criminal” will try to find out if a potential victim is armed is the reason I own (and know how to safely use) a gun.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Virginia Tech policy created an “ideal killing ground for criminals”

Joe Levi — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 18:42:48 -0000

lol, yeah, I guess you could call it an inferiority complex, or that I'm "compensating for something."

When faced with a life criminal who is most likely high on some illicit drug, carrying a weapon (whether a gun or a baseball bat) and doesn't care who he hurts to get money for his next fix, yes, I do feel inferior. A firearm is a good equalizer.

I hope I never have to use it in defense of myself or my family. But if presented with a situation like the students at Virginia Tech (or the patrons at Trolley Square) I won't be helpless and at the mercy of a criminal who's sole intent is murder.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Virginia Tech policy created an “ideal killing ground for criminals”

Joe Levi — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 13:21:50 -0000

gunsSAVElives, I think you've misunderstood the intent of my post. I am NOT advocating vigilante justice. I am NOT advocating "arming [all] university students". I do NOT want to "take the law into my own hands" nor to dish out any form of justice.

And to underscore the above, I hope I never, NEVER am put in a situation where I have to choose to defend myself or my family.

The "problem" with society today is that we've been turned in to sheep. We've been taught to curl up and hide when faced with a threat.

We saw this on 9/11 when the passengers of three airliners did nothing and thousands died. Passengers of another airliner, hearing about the hijackings of the other planes, refused to be victims and took down the hijackers of their plane.

If 4 or 5 university students had rushed the gunman (without guns or weapons other than their own bodies) after he started shooting they could have saved a great number of the 33 now dead. Yes, this would have put them in harm's way, but they would have saved dozens!

The driving factor behind my post is the message that we need to change the mentality of a notable percentage of society to refuse to be a victim. Don't let someone else force their will on you. Defend yourself, defend your family.

No, not by taking the law into your own hands, not by exercising vigilante justice, simply by defending yourself and refusing to be a victim. Simply by removing the threat.

So, let me ask you, if you are ever faced with a situation even remotely like these students were faced with, what will you do? Will you hide? Will you run away? What if you can't? What if the "bad guy" breaks down the door and finds you and your family or friends cowering in a corner with only a cell phone to protect you, what will you do to protect yourself and your family? Or will you just allow the criminal to slaughter you?

I, for one, refuse to be a victim. I hope the day never comes, but should it, I will be able to defend myself. Will you?

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Virginia Tech policy created an “ideal killing ground for criminals”

Joe Levi — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 13:55:10 -0000

Re: Virginia Tech policy created an “ideal killing ground for criminals”

Joe Levi — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 12:24:56 -0000

Paul,

You're certainly entitled to your opinion. That's what makes this country so great! We all have rights that are guaranteed to us by our Constitution and our Bill of Rights.

Before you look at repealing any Amendments, would you mind considering another set of statistics?

<table border="1">
<tr><th>Type</th> <th>5 Yr. Average</th> <th>General Population</th> <th>Protected by Constitution or Bill of Rights?</th></tr>
<tr><td>Motor Vehicle</td> <td>36,676</td> <td>1 out of 7,700</td> <td>No</td></tr>
<tr><td>Poisoning</td> <td>15,206</td> <td>1 out of 18,700</td> <td>No</td></tr>
<tr><td>Work Related</td> <td>5,800</td> <td>1 out of 49,000</td> <td>No</td></tr>
<tr><td>Large Trucks</td> <td>5,150</td> <td>1 out of 55,000</td> <td>No</td></tr>
<tr><td>Pedestrian</td> <td>4,846</td> <td>1 out of 58,000</td> <td>No</td></tr>
<tr><td>Drowning</td> <td>3,409</td> <td>1 out of 83,500</td> <td>No</td></tr>
<tr><td>Fires</td> <td>3,312</td> <td>1 out of 86,000</td> <td>No</td></tr>
<tr><td>Motorcycles</td> <td>3,112</td> <td>1 out of 91,500</td> <td>No</td></tr>
<tr><td>Railroads</td> <td>931</td> <td>1 out of 306,000</td> <td>No</td></tr>
<tr><td>Firearms</td> <td>779</td> <td>1 out of 366,000</td> <td>Yes</td></tr>
</table>
http://hazmat.dot.gov/riskmgmt/riskcompare.htm

Wouldn't it make sense to go after prohibiting the ownership and/or use of motor vehicles (which is NOT protected by the Constitution, Bill of Rights, or any subsequent Constitutional Amendment)? If not outright prohibitions, why not disallow use of vehicles by anyone other than Government/Military? Why not limit the number of vehicles that any one household can own to one? Why not limit the GVW to eliminate "large" vehicles that are fuel inefficient? 90% of people just need a little two-seater, for commuting.

Shouldn't we eliminate ALL the items on this list that aren't protected by the Constition and/or Bill of Rights before we start on the ones that are?

Or, since the 1st Amendment is "ambiguous" and doesn't mention the types of "Press" specifically, shouldn't we ban websites? 'Blogs? Email? Text/instant messaging? The people writing these aren't members of the Press, right?

Once you start taking away any RIGHT guaranteed to the People, all the others are subject to fall.

Thank you for your post and your professionalism!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Virginia Tech policy created an “ideal killing ground for criminals”

Joe Levi — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 10:49:46 -0000

Regarding your tinyurl link interesting. It's an article that cites a few studies that favor the topic of the article, then in the next-breath turns around and says that the studies proving "Gun Control" laws as inaccurate and unreliable. I can't put much stock in hypocritical articles.

We can argue all day about original intent of any Amendment, so let's look at something more recent, how about March 10th, 2007:

A federal appeals court (U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit) struck down the District's 30-year-old gun ban, ruling that the right to bear arms as guaranteed in the Second Amendment applies to individuals and not only to militias. "The Second Amendment would be an inexplicable aberration if it were not read to protect individual rights as well." This comes after six D.C. residents filed suit to keep guns for self-protection.<sup>1</sup>

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Virginia Tech policy created an “ideal killing ground for criminals”

Joe Levi — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 10:53:49 -0000

Chair_tard,

On a personal note, although we disagree (regarding the topic at hand) I have really enjoyed hearing your side of the argument and reading the sources that you've cited. If you've got a website or 'blog I'd like to include it in my "links" section if you're okay with that.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Virginia Tech policy created an “ideal killing ground for criminals”

Joe Levi — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 10:58:51 -0000

"In March 1982, 25 years ago, the small town of Kennesaw – responding to a handgun ban in Morton Grove, Ill. – unanimously passed an ordinance requiring each head of household to own and maintain a gun. Since then, despite dire predictions of 'Wild West' showdowns and increased violence and accidents, not a single resident has been involved in a fatal shooting – as a victim, attacker or defender. ... The crime rate initially plummeted for several years after the passage of the ordinance, with the 2005 [the latest statistics available] per capita crime rate actually significantly lower than it was in 1981, the year before passage of the law."<sup>1</sup>

Thanks to Mook for the link!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Virginia Tech policy created an “ideal killing ground for criminals”

Joe Levi — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 11:29:26 -0000

On June 27, in the case of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, the by a vote of 7-to-2 the Supreme Court found that Jessica Gonzales did not have a constitutional right to police protection, even in the presence of a restraining order.

In 1999, Gonzales obtained a restraining order against her estranged husband Simon, which limited his access to their children. On June 22, 1999, Simon abducted their three daughters. Though the Castle Rock police department disputes some of the details of what happened next, the two sides are in basic agreement: After her daughters' abduction, Gonzales repeatedly phoned the police for assistance. Officers visited the home. Believing Simon to be non-violent and, arguably, in compliance with the limited access granted by the restraining order, the police did nothing.

The next morning, Simon committed "suicide by cop." He shot a gun repeatedly through a police station window and was killed by returned fire. The murdered bodies of Leslie, 7, Katheryn, 9 and Rebecca, 10 were found in Simon's pickup truck.

In 1856, the U.S. Supreme Court (South v. Maryland) found that law enforcement officers had no affirmative duty to provide such protection. In 1982 (Bowers v. DeVito), the Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit held, "...there is no Constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen."

Later court decisions have concurred.

Given the court's position that the police are not obliged to protect us, responsible adults need the ability to defend themselves. Thus, no law or policy should impede the ability/capability of a law-abiding citizen from being able to defend them self and/or their family via any means they feel necessary.

The clear message of Gonzales bears repeating because you will not hear it elsewhere. The police have no obligation to protect individuals who, therefore, should defend themselves.

(Excerpted from http://www.allsafedefense.com/news/CopsDontProtect.htm and http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,162325,00.html)

Re: The Death of Internet Radio?

Joe Levi — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 15:34:47 -0000

Senator Hatch (R, UT) and Representative Bishop (R, UT) have both responded to letters of inquiry that I sent them regarding the CRB's new rates.

Neither offered any solutions to solve the problem (as is typical with constituent correspondence in my experience), but Rep. Bishop did go on record as saying the current system is "elitist" and he is "concerned with the current system."

Unfortunately, other than stating that the appeal of the CRB's "decision is to the United States Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia" Rep. Bishop had no suggestions or commitments for addressing the problem.

Sen. Hatch did, however indicated that "judges of the CRB have announced that they have agreed to hear certain arguments from groups seeking a rehearing on proposed royalty rate increases" and that he could "keep this important issue in mind as [he] discuss[es] this issue with [his] colleagues."

Read their letters (.pdf) here: [ Hatch | Bishop ]

Re: Day 1, Building Rich Web Experiences using Silverlight and Javascript for Developers (DEV11)

Joe Levi — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 23:06:24 -0000

John,

Thank you for the reply!

Although I haven't had time to confirm your numbers I don't have any reason to doubt them.

Perhaps rather than "ridiculously small" I should have said how "ridiculously fast" the total "sniff to download to install to viewing content" was, which was literally less than 10 seconds (of course that was over a broadband connection, but even still).

Frankly, I was amazed, utterly amazed.

Hey, while I've got you here, when are you guy going to release a version of the Flash player that will stream content when loaded through the standard <object type=""> tag (without a nested embed tag)?

Thanks again for the comment!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Day 1, Building Rich Web Experiences using Silverlight and Javascript for Developers (DEV11)

Joe Levi — Tue, 01 May 2007 00:19:56 -0000

Ah yes... the tortured history of OBJECT/EMBED.

Although before November 2002 I would have agreed with you on the whole OBJECT/EMBED use... but Alistapart (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/flashsatay/) says otherwise...

"Drew McLellan is the author of Dreamweaver MX Web Development and a member of The Web Standards Project’s Dreamweaver Task Force, who work with Macromedia to improve standards compliance in its market-leading web authoring products."

Do you have info to the contrary? Please say you do!

- www.Joelevi.cmo

Re: Day 1, Building Rich Web Experiences using Silverlight and Javascript for Developers (DEV11)

Joe Levi — Tue, 01 May 2007 05:51:04 -0000

In response to my obviously detail-lacking previous comment (sorry about that), the ALA Satay method of loading a flash object without using the EMBED tag involves stripping the classid from the object tag, instead relying upon the type property. This, at least at the time of ALA's writing (a long time ago), caused the SWF to load, but it wouldn't stream in. Maybe this has changed (read: fixed) in a more recent Flash player, but I just don't have the time to test this right now (we're being kept VERY busy at MIX07).

Looks like we've got some homework! Sweet! John, you rock!

Since you've got an ear at Adobe/Macromedia (at least more than I do), I'd like to see a new release of Flash Player that is instantiated via an external .js library which will automatically sniff for the presence of the player, and if not present will present the user with a default (but developer customizable should s/he so desire) "click to install" button that will download the installer (which we hope the user will then run), then refresh the page such that the plug-in is automatically rendered.

This is what Silverlight does (pretty much), and a LOT less obtrusive than what Adobe is doing now with the pluginspage value.

Additionally, the developer would be able to reference that script to pass back to a function in the external .js the path to, height, width, wmode, etc. to a dynamic loader function that would then write the control into the page thus avoiding the whole "automatic" clause in the EOLAS '906 Patent (or is it '609 Patent?) and activate the control via the script.

Thoughts?

- www.JoeLevi.com

PS: Are you at MIX07? I'd love to meet you if you are! +1 (801) 797-1376 (leave a voice mail and I'll call you back).

Re: Day 1, Building Rich Web Experiences using Silverlight and Javascript for Developers (DEV11)

Joe Levi — Wed, 02 May 2007 14:56:45 -0000

Jon B,

I completely agree. Silverlight is a "Flash Alternative" (excluding Linux at present) rather than a "Flash Killer," for now, anyway.

Why do I say "for now"? You're correct about Flash, it does the majority of stuff that Silverlight proposes to do, and that's saying a lot. So in that respect, Silverlight is an "evolutionary" technology, learning from others in the marketplace, making easier, making more powerful, adding more features, etc. Simple product differentiation.

That said, Silverlight is also "revolutionary," especially in its ease of use, IDE integration (which will really come of age with Silverlight 1.1 and being able to address the SL objects via managed code -- 1.0 is only programmably accessible via .XAML and javascript at present), and being able to stream 720p, full-screen over an internet connection, inside a "cross-platform, cross-browser" window.

Also revolutionary is the manner in which Microsoft is using to invoke the plug-in (with plug-in detection and oh-so-slick download/install of the plug-in if not present). A few people (John Dowdell and Matthew Fabb) have pointed out similar capabilities with the "Flash plug-in install/upgrade experience", and while that's cool (and stuff that I didn't know about before -- thanks guys!), the fact is that Microsoft is doing this for the developer, by default. Adobe needs to do that to make their plug-in install/upgrade even more translucent to the end user. Failing to do so isn't going to "kill" Flash, but it sure has the potential to erode the share of sites that use Flash versus Silverlight.

Also revolutionary is the .XAML format, and although that's not specifically a Silverlight feature, it exposes the capacity of an open, extensible project format that was demonstrated across development tools (Visual Studio "Orcas", Expression, Media Encoder, etc.). I can't wait to see how Adobe responds to this by extending their applications to utilize the same (or even an extended) .XAML format. It could be argued that Microsoft didn't include native (nor import/export) Adobe Photoship, GoLive, Illustrator support in their suite of tools, so why should Adobe add support for "Microsoft" formats? In my opinion, with Adobe's ubiquity in the design arena, they're "all that" and could really set the bar and further strengthen their market position by allowing current designers to stay in the suite that they're comfortable with, yet allow us designers to be able to use the designer's files in their native format, rather than slicing and dicing and "rebuilding" their design in Visual Studio with ASP.NET, CSS, and XHTML.

My last point, Flash, again in my opinion, seems to be a "media player" by ancestry, and scripting and actions and all that other "interactivity" were sort of slapping in there and muddied up the waters. The last few builds of the designer have improved on this DRAMATICALLY, but it still feels like anything but just playing the timeline contiguously was an "inconvenience" to the development team. That's just my bias, of course, but I'm sure it's an opinion that's shared by at least a few out there.

Bottom-line: Adobe has just been passed, and if they don't catch up quick they run the risk of being lapped.

I sincerly hope that the execs at Adobe quit flinging-mud and start saying "yeah, competetion is good -- they've done some cool stuff -- just wait till you see what we've got coming!" (Bruce Chizen, are you listening?)

Thanks for the comment Jon!

Re: Day 1, Building Rich Web Experiences using Silverlight and Javascript for Developers (DEV11)

Joe Levi — Fri, 04 May 2007 12:56:45 -0000

Scott, well said. From the developer's standpoint, Silverlight (particularly 1.1alpha) is so much easier to code to (what with .XAML and managed code and all).

I am really excited about playing with it on some of the sites that I maintain! :)

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Introducing Spencer Levi (updated with pictures)

Joe Levi — Fri, 11 May 2007 21:26:51 -0000

Photos are now online at http://www.flickr.com/photos/32389756@N00/sets/...

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: T-Mobile T-Zones Proxy

Joe Levi — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 17:26:36 -0000

Here's an even better resource: http://wiki.howardforums.com/index.php/T-Mobile...

Re: Beware of 405-603-7076

Joe Levi — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 20:35:27 -0000

"Anonymous",

Based on your input I did a little more digging. Specifically, I researched your IP address...

OrgName: UICI Marketing
Address: 850 Cannon Drive, Hurst TX, 76054, US
NetRange: 208.30.146.0 - 208.30.146.255
CIDR: 208.30.146.0/24
RTechName/Phone: LaChance, James / +1-817-255-3936

And upon more digging: UICI Marketing Inc. is a Private Subsidiary, with headquarters location at 9151 Grapevine Hwy., North Richland Hills, TX, United States, (817)255-5200, fax, http://www.megainsurance.com
Primary SIC: Accident And Health Insurance, Primary NAICS: Direct Health and Medical Insurance Carriers, Description: Insurance: Marketing division of UICI.

Which leads to:
The MEGA Life and Health Insurance Company
Customer Care Center
PO Box 982010
North Richland Hills, Tx 76182

Interestingly, "UICI has changed its corporate identity to HealthMarkets" and their new site is located at http://www.healthmarketsokc.com/ and is located at HealthMarkets - Life Insurance Operations, 1331 W. Memorial Road, Suite 112, Oklahoma City, OK 73114; (405) 848-0179 and (800) 725-7887. They do have a "Privacy Office" located at Privacy Office, HealthMarkets OKC Insurance Division, 1331 W. Memorial Road, Suite 112, Oklahoma City, OK 73114.

Of further interest is an SEC filing which states "One of our subsidiaries, HealthMarkets Lead Marketing Group Inc. (formerly known as UICI Marketing, Inc.), serves as our direct marketing group
and generates new membership sales prospect leads [...] HealthMarkets Lead Marketing Group administers a call center (located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) staffing approximately 80 tele-service representatives. Leads are also obtained from third party data sources. HealthMarkets Lead Marketing Group has developed a marketing pool of approximately fifteen million prospects from various data sources. Prospects initially identified by HealthMarkets Lead Marketing Group that are self-employed, small business owners or individuals may become a 'qualified lead' by responding through one of HealthMarkets Lead Marketing Group's lead channels and by expressing an interest in learning more about health insurance. We believe that UGA and Cornerstone agents, possessing the qualified leads' contact information, are able to achieve a higher 'close' rate than is the case with unqualified prospects."

I must therefore conclude that you are somehow employed for UICI Marketing Inc., the marketing wing of The MEGA Life and Health Insurance Company (now known as HeathMarkets), and that a person or persons calling from one of your numbers (specifically 405-603-7076) is an active telemarketer who may or may not be trying to solicit social security numbers and/or other personal information for the purposes of soliciting insurance quotes.

To the rest of you reading, treat this call like a telemarketing call and follow the script at Saddleback.edu to note all the questions required by The Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (FTCPA) 47 U.S.C. Section 201 et seq., which allows consumers to sue telemarketers if the company's pattern of calls breaks the law two or more times in a year.

If you're determined to litigate, spend $10 on a booklet called "So You Want to Sue a Telemarketer", available from Private Citizen, Inc. by calling 1-800-CUT-JUNK. Note that many companies will settle out of court.

Since this is a marketing call made by, for, and/or on behalf of an insurance company, there may be more regulations that apply to how phone solicitations are made.

You could also contact The District Attorney of Oklahoma and file a formal complaint. One could also file a formal complaint with the SEC and/or under the FTCPA.

Back to your comment, Anonymous: I'm glad that you've assured us that no one from your company will call casking for a social security number, however, the "anonymous" nature of your comment does make me more than a little suspicious. I'm sure if you're a legitimate person representing a legitimate company that you will have no hesitation responding with a valid name, email address, phone number, and title within the company. Right?

Re: Beware of 405-603-7076

Joe Levi — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:44:24 -0000

Kat,

I'm glad this post was able to help you out!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Beware of 405-603-7076

Joe Levi — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 10:50:58 -0000

Tim, you're not alone in being harassed by calls from this number. Luckily, after my first round with them I haven't been bothered again since, so there may be a silver-lining.

Glad you didn't get sucked in!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Beware of 405-603-7076

Joe Levi — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 18:40:06 -0000

Cindy,

Glad that I could help out!

If it's any consolation, I called them back and used their automated system to add my numbers to their "do not call list" and haven't gotten a single call from them since.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: FedEx Customer Service Problems

Joe Levi — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 19:29:17 -0000

Justin,

I don't blame you for your frustration. I have found, however, with damage claims, it's typically just a matter of filling out the right form within the right amount of time, after that it's usually a check and a mailing label.... you get a check from FedEx for the damaged item, and they basically buy it from you (that's what the label is for).

Often times, however, you have to rely on the sender (which is usually the "seller" if the item shipped was a purchased item). Sometimes sellers don't want to follow through with the claim (they have your money, after all), if that's the case package it back up, put a "return to sender" label on it (or ask FedEx for one) and contest the charge with your credit card company/PayPal. Since the item is no longer in your possession and they weren't helping you in a timely fashion, you're usually "in the right" and will get your money back.

Just a thought.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: WebHost4Life.com & WordPress issues

Joe Levi — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 12:47:38 -0000

Ironically, yes, a normal "Publish" click works just fine... and this is only with MikeDopp.com, JoeLevi.com (hosted on the same web host) works just fine.

Re: WebHost4Life.com & WordPress issues

Joe Levi — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 11:00:53 -0000

ReallyVirtual,

Strangely enough, my WP install (all the way from 2.0 through 2.2) has worked without problems -- and yes, it's on a WebHost4Life Windows Hosting solution.

A little more detective work on www.MikeDopp.com has revealed that (even though they installed MikeDopp.com AFTER JoeLevi.com) he is on PHP4, whereas I'm on PHP5.

Mike's petitioned WebHost4Life to move his stuff over to the same box as me (or at least one with PHP5 on it), but they're wanting $20 to do it.

WP2.2 should just plain work, no hacks, no slashes, just proper permissions and correct file locations.

Let me know if you're on PHP4 or PHP5.

Re: WebHost4Life.com & WordPress issues

Joe Levi — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:00:46 -0000

ReallyVirtual, we haven't confirmed the "php5 magic bullet" yet, but I'm pretty confident that will at least move the issue forward.

I've also been impressed with "urgent" ticket response times (non-urgent can take a while).

With MikeDopp.com, Mike tried escalating the ticket and eventually used the Email the CEO link. Once he did that the tone of the ticket turned from "it must be a WordPress issue, go ask them" to a "well, let's see what else it could be" attitude.

Once we get it all fixed we'll probably both 'blog about it so others who are in the same boat can have another resource.

Since switching from PHP4 to PHP5 on your account will take a while, don't forget to let me know when you've made the migration whether it worked or not.

Thanks for your input thus far!

Re: WebHost4Life.com & WordPress issues

Joe Levi — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 11:27:57 -0000

So now that you're on WP2.2 and PHP5, are you seeing any issues, or did that resolve them all?

Re: Crazy

Joe Levi — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 12:18:56 -0000

Keyvan,

You're correct, it's not the specification itself that I'm having problems with, but the WordPress Plugin that isn't doing all the "heavy lifting" of validating the data that it's putting to the file.

For example, it's letting through post names that are too long for SubText to import (due to database limits on lengths, which I suppose I could modify the field length to work around, but what else might that break).l

Also, it's letting square brackets in ([ and ]) which is breaking the rest of the file. Ideally, the plugin would see these and auto-correct for them. Again, not a problem with BlogML per se, rather with the WP Plugin, which is, as you stated, still in beta.

The concept itself is beautiful, elegant.

The implementation (on both export and import) is still rough around the edges, but not moreso than I expected.

Thanks for the feedback and the correction!

Re: iPhone Root Password Cracked

Joe Levi — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 14:21:09 -0000

Hey McKay... you're still reading my lil' ol' 'blog? Thanks!

And yes, I do agree with some of the points in the slashdot article, but I don't think the polar opposite to paranoia (as the article suggests) is the appropriate response, either.

Ask any Unix/Linux user, the ROOT account means total control, and the ROOT password is the most protected of all passwords.

So just because there is no terminal application and no known hacks, just having the password be common knowledge seems to be a concerning area.

Re: ASP.NET Error: It is an error to use a section … beyond application level

Joe Levi — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:52:08 -0000

Another possible source of this is if (for some odd reason) you have a duplicate web.config file (that's in a different folder in the same project).

We ran into this problem when we somehow got a copy of our working files/folders nested inside the root folder of our project. Removing the duplicate web.config fixed the problem (and we removed the rest of the nested files/folders after that).

Thanks to www.MikeDopp.net for finding this out!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: ASP.NET Error: It is an error to use a section … beyond application level

Joe Levi — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 11:13:21 -0000

@Taraka Ravi:

Glad to be able to help!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: All Your WP Themes are Belong to Us

Joe Levi — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 14:26:54 -0000

On a related note, it's not just malware that you need to be concerned about, a similar site has placed custom code into the the themes to redirect or embed ads... etc. Read more here:
http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2007/...

Re: Rudy Giuliani: ineligible in the race for President

Joe Levi — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:46:46 -0000

Dan, thanks for your input! I can certainly see your logic.

Even so, an honorary knighthood still seems to be a "Title of Nobility ... of any kind whatever" as defined by Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution of the United States.

That said, I really quite like the guy. I think he reacted quite well (not perfectly) to a terrible situation, and we as a nation have fared better because of how he and his office handled the unimaginable. I then compare his reactions to Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans... :: sigh ::

Again, thanks so much for your comments!!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Set your user’s mouse cursor to ‘busy’ during an AJAX request using ASP.NET AJAX

Joe Levi — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:10:31 -0000

@Enzo,

This method should work with or without masterpages.

The key here is that the entire page is wrapped within a div (I call mine divPageContainer). This div is NOT runat=server and doesn't necessarily have to be within your asp.net <form> tag.

The code here changes the mouse cursor while it's inside the named div (so you could modify the code to only show busy in a specific area, but there's an AJAX Control Toolkit Extender that does that).

I'd suggest you make a new masterpage and .aspx page to verify the code works, then apply that to you pre-existing documents.

Let me know how it works for you.

- www.JoeLevi.com</form>

Re: Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX Control ToolKit: Accordion Panels in a Tab Container

Joe Levi — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 14:18:59 -0000

Glad I could help!

Also of note, Microsoft’s ASP.NET AJAX Futures has been updated and includes some additional Silverlight-compatible features (download the Microsoft ASP.NET Futures (July 2007) Release here): http://www.joelevi.com/blog/index.php/2007/07/3...

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: MSN Messenger + Pandora

Joe Levi — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:12:19 -0000

Tom, thanks for the reply! Out of curiosity, what's your title over there in Pandoraville?

I'm really glad that you have seen many of the points that I outlined in the overall process. I think the MSN Radio tab is definitely a step in the right direction for Pandora (regarding audience expansion and general adoption).

Okay, brainstorm with me a little here... no bad ideas, right?

The issues at hand are operating costs versus revenues, correct? Operating costs in this context consist mainly of licensing fees and bandwidth costs. Revenues consist of advertisements sold or subscriptions sold (as a subscription negates the ads, right?).

So how can we address each of these? Again, no bad ideas, just brainstorming...

Reduce bandwidth overhead: give non-subscribers "radio quality" music (which takes less bandwidth, and hence costs less in operating expenses). Paid subscribers would get higher quality music ("Pandora HD", or something like that), these users would also see the ads, but wouldn't hear any ads in their music stream.

Increase advertising revenues: I've listened to Pandora a lot... no, really A LOT! In all that time listening I've heard ads a total of 3, maybe 4 times. I'm not a paid subscriber at present. Perhaps advertisers don't digg audio ads, but that's not logical because "OTA" radio has plenty of ads.

Increase advertising revenues: Sell local ads by using the listener's relative location as defined by their IP address. The "relevancy" of these ads could be greatly increased for location-based businesses.

Increase audience base: This will both increase bandwidth costs, but will also increase your listener-base (and should bring in more advertisers). One possible way to do this could be to offer a "Widget" to 'blog authors (I could put a Pandora station on my blog, for instance; visitors would see a 160x240 (for example) Pandora box with basic interaction controls, after a few seconds, those fade out and all that's left is the Pandora Radio logo and the sponsored ad. Another possibility would be offering a Windows Vista or MacOSX Gadget that would have basically the same features and dimensions mentioned above.

Back to the blog widget, one could offer the website owner two forms of widget, a "free" (read: ad based) widget, and a paid (read: no ads, but the website owner pays a monthly "no ads" fee to cover, say, the first 1500 minutes of listening through their site).

Again, just thoughts... what're yours?

PS: Say hi to Tim for me. ;)

Re: MSN Messenger + Pandora

Joe Levi — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:15:47 -0000

Hey Tom, another thought on the weblog widget thread:
Why not drop a bottom-left, fixed position, transparent image sporting the current advertisers branding (complete with hyperlink) in the corner of the blog... maybe that would not only be branding, but controls and "Power by Pandora" bug as well... it's down and out of the way, but definitely visible. Anyhow, let me know what you think.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Rear-ended in my Prius

Joe Levi — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 14:27:11 -0000

Here's a good read regarding what you should do if you're involved in an accident: http://www.digg.com/offbeat_news/What_To_Do_In_...

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: ASP.NET 1.1 Error: System.Xml.XmlReader is inaccessible due to its protection level

Joe Levi — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:09:22 -0000

Glad I wash able to help out! That's one of the main reasons I have my blog, to post the problems and fixes that I've found in my wanderings!

Thanks for the visit! Don't be a stranger! :)

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Don’t Run With Sharp Objects

Joe Levi — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 13:27:54 -0000

I just got an update from a friend of mine, her son is in the hospital right now, nothing like the fork in the nose... much worse...

Thoughts and prayers for her son and family are appreciated.

http://www.joelevi.com/blog/index.php/2007/08/0...

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: WOOT: Zune, $149.99 + 5 shipping

Joe Levi — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 11:56:25 -0000

Nothing wrong with an ip-od... well, except for the it-unes requirement...

Sweet deal at Amazon! Thanks for the tip, Mike!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: HOW TO: Optimize your .PNG Images

Joe Levi — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 16:23:08 -0000

Dan, thanks for the pointer. I was particularly interested in this line from the article that you mentioned: "8 bit PNG files can also be saved with a transparent Alpha if they are saved with a 32 bit color palette."

This is where the confusion, I think, is coming in to play. In the beginning there were two types of PNGs: one to address GIF style images (with index transparency and a 256 color pallet), and another to address JPEG style images (with millions of colors in its pallet, but no transparency).

PNG8 was meant to "replace" GIF, and PNG24 was meant to replace JPEG. GIFs, having a smaller color pallet than JPEG, were used for small, low-detail images (in comparision to JPEGs). JPEGs were used to convey photo-realisitic pictures.

PNG24 hasn't done as well as PNG8 in replacing the respective competing image formats, primarily because PNG24 images are typically larger in file size than their JPEG counterparts (in my experience).

So, the point of my confusion is, if the advantage to PNG8 is small file-size (when compared to PNG24), wouldn't a PNG8 with a 32bit (rather than 256) color pallet end up just as large as a PNG24? And what does the 24 stand for? I always thought was 24 bit. Also, why doesn't Photoshop have a 32-bit color pallet for PNG8 images in their "save for web" dialog?

In any event, you pointed me to a good resource and educated me about PNGs, and for that I thank you! :)

-www.JoeLevi.com

Re: HOW TO: Optimize your .PNG Images

Joe Levi — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 11:39:53 -0000

I'll have to check into that... Thanks again for the info, Dan!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Office 2007 Vulnerability: Excel Stores Data Connection Password in Plain Text

Joe Levi — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 17:09:17 -0000

I don't know if the data connection(s) password(s) is(are) defined in the OOXML spec or not.

Even a salted or SHA-1 password would be better than plain-text like we have now. Maybe someone in the Office Team (or OOXML Team) at Microsoft would care to answer that question for us (whether or not password storage/encryption is defined in or a proprietary extension to the OOXML spec).

The interesting part is that regardless of user selection, Excel 2007 DOES save the password in the .XML. That's more an Excel bug than anything, but a substantial one at that. Once they recognize and fix that we're back to the point you brought up about encrypting/salting passwords stored in the XML.

I've put in a request with the digital forensics expert for his sandbox files and will attach them to the post when he is able to do that for me.

Thanks for the feedback, Rob!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Office 2007 Vulnerability: Excel Stores Data Connection Password in Plain Text

Joe Levi — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 12:06:40 -0000

Rob, I've edited the original post and provided links to the files. Please note that the data connection is hard coded to a specific path.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Uninsured Americans: Fact, Fiction, and Misleading Truths

Joe Levi — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 13:12:54 -0000

bc, I agree entirely.

Why don't we just open Medicare/Medicaid to all the uninsured? We force all of our Senior Citizens into it (whether or not they want it versus private health insurance), so why not force everyone else into it?

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Uninsured Americans: Fact, Fiction, and Misleading Truths

Joe Levi — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:56:57 -0000

@Scott,

Good commentary, though I disagree with your conclusions. (Isn't our country great? We can both have polar opposite opinions, yet we both regard each other with respect. Thanks for not flaming! :)) By the way, your site is pretty cool! :)

I agree with you about most insurance companies (HMO, PPO, etc.) and their lack of ethics. I would also add that they lack efficiency. Large organizations require large overhead to operate. Overhead is expensive (infrastructure, communications, buildings, employees, etc.). Sending out statements and notices (sometimes 3 and 4 at a time, in separate envelopes no less) is also expensive -- not to mention wasteful.

Private doctors now have to hire or contract with an office staff to obtain insurance information, and appropriately bill the patient's insurance policy. Which bring up another point: insurance companies traditionally operate as a 3rd party payer. In other words, a patient doesn't care about the cost, they only worry about their co-pay.

Ironically, today's co-pay alone would have just about covered the entire cost of the doctor visit when I was a kid. Even with a $15 co-pay, I'd gladly pay twice or even three times that to a doctor if I didn't have to pay any insurance out of my pay check.

Look at where the money is going: a good portion of the doctor's pay is going to cover additional staff needed to properly bill the insurance companies; another large part is going to cover his malpractice (or "liability" insurance) because we're so "sue-happy." Another good portion of the money is going to cover the MASSIVE overhead behind health insurance companies.

Get rid of both of those and we have health services that are not constrained to what the insurance company dictates, rather by what the doctor thinks is best for you. And it costs less, too!

How could we make our present system worse? By having the government step in and handle it. Medicare, MedicAide, VA Hospitals... need I say more? Yes, All of these programs serve a purpose, and do help some people, but they're all examples in inefficiency and poor-service.

So, let's take you fictional private fire-fighting service (which actually took place not terribly long ago) and apply our logic (above):

Let's say my house catches fire. It's a small fire, nothing to worry about. I could have smothered it by simply placing a lid over the top of the frying pen, but I didn't. Instead I called my local fire-house: they two minutes down the road. I've toured their facilities: state of the art. The Customer Service Representative asks me if they are an "in-network provider" or not -- I don't know whether they are or not. They recommend that I call the number on the back of my fire insurance card and make sure, otherwise the cost of fighting the fire might be prohibitive.

I went to my wallet and dug out my "fire insurance" card and dialed the toll-free number on the card (which costs the insurance company more than it would have cost me for a long-distance call, but that's just one more example of inefficiency). I'm asked a series of questions to which I can press or say a number, which leads me to another series of questions.

Finally I'm put in the call queue that can "most appropriately" answer my question. By this time the fire has caught the cabinetry on fire -- a simple "lid on the pan" won't put it out any more. Luckily I still have a fire extinguisher nearby.

After being on hold for 15 minutes (and forced to listen to some awful music because the RIAA won't let companies play "decent music" without paying through the nose for it) the fire has engulfed the cabinets and is climbing the walls. It's getting hot in here, but I don't want to hang up the phone and call from a neighbor's house because I'll lose my place in line.

Finally I get through to a "customer service representative" who is outsourced by a company in India. I can barely understand him/her, but I recognize this is helping keep the cost of my premiums down and is helping the global economy, so I struggle through what should have been a 60 second conversation in 5 minutes.

During that time I've managed to communicate my name, my membership number, my place of employment, my group and policy numbers, and have given a $15 co-pay via my credit card (a receipt will be emailed to me -- unfortunately the computer is now on fire, too).

The kitchen and office are now entirely aflame. I switch to the phone in the den and yell for one of my children to "go hang up the phone in the kitchen." Luckily, after braving the fire, my child returns with just minor smoke-inhalation.

The Indian Customer Service Representative has me on hold while he/she checks my account and finds an "in-network provider." Five minutes later I'm told that the fire station down the street isn't on the preferred list, so if I utilize them I'll have to pay 80% of the cost, but the fire insurance company will pay the other 20% (up to $5,000, after that it's up to me). The closest "preferred provider" is 20 minutes up the road, but the fire insurance company will pay 90% up to $5,000, then cover the rest at 100%; I'll still have to pay the co-pay and 10% of the costs (up to $5,000). I go ahead and agree. The "CSR" gives me an authorization number and the phone number of the fire station and asks if I'd mind responding to a short quality survey regarding the call and level of service. I decline -- the fire is spreading. The CSR asks if it would be okay if they people from the survey call me at a later time; I comply. When would be a good time for them to call back? Oh, how about after the fire is put out! When will that be? Well, the sooner I hang up and get the fire station called... I hang up abruptly and call the "preferred fire station."

Luckily my call is answered quickly and a fire response team is dispatched to my location. Luckily it's only 20 minutes away. I grab my kids and wife and we run across the street to the neighbor's lawn.

45 minutes later a lone fire truck arrives, it's got a reel and a garden hose on top. They say the "big hose truck" is on another call, but will be here shortly, in the meantime the trickle of water from the "little hose truck" starts spraying the fire.

An hour later half of the house is ablaze, but the "big hose truck" finally shows up. It takes another hour to get the blaze under control.

The house didn't quite burn to the ground, the garage is still in-tact.

About a week later (my family and I are living in the garage now), we get the bill from the "preferred provider." We owe $500 that the fire insurance company didn't cover (our 10%). Oh, and our fire insurance premium is now 7 times what it was before, but they'll start taking that out of my next pay check, so all is well.

The moral is this: with a little bit of education and a sense of self-reliance I should have know that all I had to do was put a lid on the pan and the fire would have been smothered. Instead I had been taught in public school, by my employer, the health insurance "machine", and my government that I shouldn't do anything for myself, that there is someone out there to do it for me. And if there isn't, there should be. I just need to pay more money out of my paycheck to some large insurance company, or to the government, or both, and they'll take care of me.

Here's where I get to pick on the tenets of our religions (I noticed that you're Catholic, and I'm another form of Christian)...

We are taught to love our neighbors and to take care of our selves and our families. Doing so are Christ-Like attributes and we're supposed to emulate Him. Right?

So why wouldn't I have educated myself, and taught my children of worldly things (in addition to spiritual things)? If I had, then I'd have known (and my family would have known) how to put the fire out before it became a problem. And even if it did blaze out of control, wouldn't I have been a good enough neighbor that they would have chipped in and helped me fight the fire before it did any major damage? And even if the house did burn to the ground wouldn't they have invited us into their homes to give us warmth and food until we could re-build my house?

That would have cost the government nothing. It would have cost me no co-pays, and no premiums out of my pay check... I'd be a lot richer, wouldn't I? But what would I do with all that extra money? Hopefully, being the good Christian and good neighbor that I'm trying to be, I'd see how my neighbors are in need and I'd be able to help them out because I'd have the means where they may not because of their circumstances.

But the way it is now, we live in a country (and pretty much a world) where it's a liability when we try to be a good Samaritan, a good neighbor, and being a Christian is under attack by the media and the legal system.

A government program isn't going to help. Being a good neighbor -- a good Christian is the real answer. And why limit it to Christians, doesn't the Koran teach tolerance and good-will as well? Don't most religions teach this as well?

Anyhow, just my thoughts... though I am appreciative of yours as well!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Uninsured Americans: Fact, Fiction, and Misleading Truths

Joe Levi — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:44:26 -0000

@Scott,

We're basically talking on the same lines... and we have surprisingly similar conclusions.

Regarding my fire insurance story, you're right, that is the same situation that we're in with health insurance. It's not what we're in with "fire coverage." Ironically, my dad just had a case where a neighbor called the fire department regarding his wood fireplace, the fire station came and "put out" a chimney fire (that didn't really happen, as we came to find out), and sent my dad a bill for their services. So even fire protection isn't "free" anymore.

Back on-topic... I'm right there with you regarding income tax, estate tax, marriage tax, and most other kind of tax out there.

Get rid of all Federal taxes. Get rid of the IRS. Institute a flat 20% sales tax on everything. I'd go as far as taxing food, shelter, gasoline, electricity, natural gas, etc., but only at 20% (or whatever that "magic number" turns out to be).

The only thing "exempt" from sales taxes would be food staples (wheat, flower, oats, milk, eggs, vegetable oil, corn, seeds, and fresh produce). If you want a cake and want it tax-free, you make it from scratch.

Also, property would be taxed at sale (or re-sale) but never outside the context of a sale.

You'd pay your sales taxes to the local city/municipality in which you do business, who would then support the county, who would then support the state, who would then support the federal government. The money would all "roll up" like it did under the original intent of the Founding Fathers. This would encourage fiscal responsibility at the most local of levels, where we (The People) have the most control.

Social Security would be phased out (just like your plan). What people have paid in they will get back, plus whatever the prime interest rate is, but existing contributors will have the option to put it into a 401(k) style account, new contributors won't have the option (it'll just go into the 401(k))).

Medicare and MedicAide will undergo the same transition, with the money normally paid out going into the 401(k) style account. (Of course the 401(k)-style account would allow payouts for emergency services.)

But my take-home message would be more self-sufficiency, more "good neighborliness," smaller government, and more involvement at the local level.

Have a fabulous night, and thanks for the stimulating conversation! Hopefully I see you back in the not too distant future.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: How to Scare IE Users into Upgrading with only ONE Line of Code

Joe Levi — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:27:40 -0000

@Bryan,

It's taken a while, but I've finally modified the bar.css to make the entire bar clickable.

Take a look, and thanks for the suggestion!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Syracuse City (Utah) Prohibits Firearms at City City Park during Tax-Funded Event

Joe Levi — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 19:28:29 -0000

Just an update, as of end-of-business on Monday, I have not gotten any reply from the Mayor, nor any of the City Council.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Syracuse City (Utah) Prohibits Firearms at City City Park during Tax-Funded Event

Joe Levi — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 00:15:56 -0000

At the end of business on Tuesday, still no response from either the mayor nor the city council.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Syracuse City (Utah) Prohibits Firearms at City City Park during Tax-Funded Event

Joe Levi — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:12:34 -0000

UPDATE: The Mayor called me last night at home and clarified the announcement -- it was intended to apply to "toy guns."

He further said that there will be a substantial police presence there, and it is held right behind the police station... he doesn't feel that it's the right place to have a firearm, but if you're "one of the good guys" and "have a Concealed Firearm Permit and feel so inclined" to carry that you're welcome to.

I asked him about those without a CFP who wish to open carry, which is allowed by Utah Law. This seemed to frustrate him a bit, but he agreed that this would also NOT be prohibited.

He went on to state that he is in the process of obtaining his Utah Concealed Firearm Permit and that he would advise the Arts Council regarding State Law.

He apologized for the confusion and voiced his appreciation for "keeping an eye out" for things like this.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Syracuse City (Utah) Prohibits Firearms at City City Park during Tax-Funded Event

Joe Levi — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:08:29 -0000

@Idetrorce,

Care to elaborate exactly what it is you don't agree with and why?

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Show me your receipt, or you’ll be arrested!

Joe Levi — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 20:25:23 -0000

Hat tip to Mook for pointing this out to me.

I'll be contacting my State Legislators regarding this and requesting they modify the Code to include:

- language that in order for a merchant (etc.) to detain you they must officially charge you with theft (which would then leave them -- and the company that they're working for -- liable for defamation/slander if you and not found guilty of theft)

- and that limits be put on the amount of time you can be detained, and the manner of detention be specified.

I'd urge all my readers to do the same!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Show me your receipt, or you’ll be arrested!

Joe Levi — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 10:49:45 -0000

Another idea brought to my attention, if an employee asks to see your receipt, politely ask to speak with the store manager.

Inform the manager that you have not stolen anything from their store, and do not appreciate the implication that you have.

Inform the manager that if they wish to see your receipt it will be to process a full and complete refund -- or they can choose to let you go without seeing your receipt.

Inform the manager that such an implication will be considered slander and defamation (and if written down, liable), and you will pursue those charges.

Then blog all about it! Get names, titles, locations, dates, times, everything you can get. If you can record the conversation (and are not prohibited from doing so by law) then do so!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Show me your receipt, or you’ll be arrested!

Joe Levi — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:40:59 -0000

Here's another article on the subject: http://www.standuptowalmart.com/article_walmart...

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Syracuse, Utah Referendum 1 Debate

Joe Levi — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 20:19:02 -0000

Clair,

Thank you for your comments! We have opposite conclusions on Referendum 1, but our basis for them is remarkably similar!

Mike Moyes (former City Administrator) was asked to retire/resign, he reported to the Mayor, so the Mayor assumed his responhsibilies. The City Council, by their support of the Mayor's actions (rather than a statement of unsupport and refusal to honor decisions that he made that were outside his powers) in effect granted him defacto powers of CEO.

The City Council didn't like the decisions that he was making and decided to shift the title of CEO from the Mayor to a new City Manager. The City Council refused the request of the citizenry (you and I, and 200 people who were signatories) via a petition to withhold the vote to create the position of a City Manager and assign him/her the title of CEO -- the petition asked to place the proposed change on a ballot. The City Council refused to listen to the petioners and voted to go ahead and act on their own.

THEY refused to listen to US.

WE took our complaint about their action to a judge who sided with the petioners and directed the measure be place on a ballot.

In other words, 200+ petitioners AND a judge with jurisdiction agree that the City Council acted inappropriately by not involving US (the citizens) in this VERY important decision.

So now it's up for us to vote...

If we side with the City Concil we're telling them that we don't need to be involved -- that they don't have to involve us in important decisions like this one. They've already shown a disregard for public input, so this will simply serve to embolden them.

If we vote AGAINST Referendum 1 the problem is still not fixed (you and I both agree on that point), but it will send a message to the City Council that they MUST involve us. When we vote down Referendum 1 I'm certain that the City Council will bring this up again, and this time they'll be wise to involve us.

Together WE (You and I and the rest of the Citizens, along with the City Council and Mayor) can come up with a solution that will best suit OUR city.

Vote NO on Referendum 1 so WE can fix it the right way.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Syracuse, Utah Referendum 1 Debate

Joe Levi — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:51:08 -0000

Related to Referendum 1:
Time to work with Syracuse mayor, by Lewis Ethrington: http://www.standard.net/live/opinion/topofutahv...

Related to the perils of not voting:
We Live With the Consequences of Not Voting, by Clair Smedley: http://www.standard.net/live/opinion/letterstot...

Re: Syracuse, Utah Referendum 1 Debate

Joe Levi — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 17:02:48 -0000

Hey Raven,

I don't mean to sound curt, but did you even read the post? Hopefully you didn't, so let me clarify:

This post is about Syracuse Utah's Municipal Referendum 1 which has to do with the proposed changes to Syracuse's form of government (particularly the title and responsibilities of "Mayor" and "City Manager").

Syracuse Municipal Referendum 1 has nothing to do with education, and nothing to do with vouchers...

When you belittle my education (I have B.S. and A.S degrees in Information Systems and Technlogies, and an A.A. degree in General Studies from Weber State University, thank you for asking) but are some COMPLETELY off-topic with your comment, it really brings to focus YOUR level of education (or lack thereof) -- perhaps if your parents had a choice between a private or charter school versus a public monopoly school you'd have gathered that...

But let me comment on your comment, even thought it's off-topic for this post:

Regarding UTAH Referendum 1 (note, Utah is a "State", Syracuse is a City or "Municipality" hence the difference between Utah State Referendum 1 ("vouchers") and Syracuse Municipal Referendum 1 ("form of government")... but I digress)... Regarding Utah's Referendum 1, you made a comment about Brown V. Board of Education (of Topeka), which was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court (it overturned earlier rulings going back to Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, by declaring that state laws which established separate public schools for black and white students denied black children equal educational opportunities).

The ruling was handed down on May 17, 1954 and stated in no uncertain terms, that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" and segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. (Ironically, regarding gender, we can still have "separate but equal" locker rooms and rest rooms, and that's perfectly okay? Again, I digress.)

Vouchers don't do that at all. Period. Vouchers enable parents (of any race, color, creed, religion, or ethnic background) to choose what school bet suits the needs of their children and offers public funds to those parents to off-set the cost differential (if any) of one school versus another. That's it. Simple.

I'm an ethnic minority, I've got papers to prove it, the Federal Government acknowlegdes my claim of Miniority Status. I think vouchers are a good thing, and (as a parent) would LOVE to be able to afford to send one of my children to a school that is more able to deal with his special needs. Right now I can't afford that (and many caucasians wouldn't be able to either). With a voucher system in place I'd be more able to afford it.

Read that again: as a member of a recognized minority who has a child with special needs, I would be more able to afford an education more suited to my child WITH a voucher system than without.

If you're all for the NEA (a back-East, special interest, labor union) controlling what our chilren are taught without any competition... and written in to the contract is that a sub-par teacher cannot be fired, how's that good for our children?

Competition is a good thing. Monopoly is a bad thing. Labor unions that control a monopoly and have enough power to make it a contractual violation for firing a teacher due to poor performance is a VERY bad thing.

Imagine if you didn't do what your employer paid you to do, or did it very, very poorly. Your boss would write you up, and eventually fire you. And your fear of being fired would probably encourage you to work harder/smarter. Teachers in public schools don't have that today. You know what else they don't have? Much room to get raises. Every teacher I know wants more money, why wouldn't they WANT to go to a private school where the school administrators could give them raises that would reflect how good of a teacher they are?

Anyhow, that's VERY off-topic, but hopefully it gave you something to think about. And thanks for visiting my website!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Syracuse, Utah Referendum 1 Debate

Joe Levi — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 17:12:32 -0000

Back on topic: a "real debate was held Saturday the 3rd of November at 10am at Syracuse Junior Highschool regarding Syracuse Utah's Municipal Referendum 1 ("form of government") between Mayor Panucci and Councilmember Danny Hammon.

This debate filled approcimately 2/3 of the school's cafeteria. Every point that Danny brought up, Mayor Panucci had a well-articulated response to, and was able to disprove most of Danny's points. Danny, by the looks of things, deliberately left material information off his slides and made some substantial misrepresentations of timelines and City Council meetings.

If you attended the first "debate" but not the second, please contact me (link is at the top of the page) with any questions that you may have regarding the differences.

That said, if you were at both, please add your experiences to this comment thread!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Greener Driving with GPS Vehicle Tracking Software

Joe Levi — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 11:04:16 -0000

Daniel,

Sorry about the confusion! Apparently I didn't do very well connecting "green driving" with "GPS solutions," so let me give it a try here.

By utilizing a routing/mapping system system one can optimize their driving route, thus saving time (which is money) and gas (which "saves the planet").

Add a GPS device, some intelligent software, and traffic monitoring and you get dynamic re-routing (to get you to another pickup near your route, or to bypass that construction or police activity -- which saves even more time and even more fuel.

So, that said, did I clear things up at all for you?

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Then End of the World: How it all begins

Joe Levi — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:45:43 -0000

@Georgicgirl,

Thanks for the link (www.ldsavow.com). I had actually signed up for the site and ordered the "Dreams and Visions" (volume 1) shortly after posting this.

Since then I've done a lot of preparing and don't have that foreboding feeling -- or the dreams -- anymore. "Those who are prepared shall not fear" comes to mind.

Thanks again for the link and for visiting! Don't be a stranger!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: A Call for Zune Autoplaylists

Joe Levi — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:40:17 -0000

Darbster! That sounds good! What's yer schedule look like for this week? Next?

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: 11/12/07 An Important Message for E*TRADE Customers

Joe Levi — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 18:01:20 -0000

Matt, Hopefully the losses are less than that. Could you provide a citation for your "$5 billion" amount?

According to the letter E*Trade "could absorb an immediate write down in excess of $1 billion and still remain well capitalized".

Here's to hoping!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: 11/12/07 An Important Message for E*TRADE Customers

Joe Levi — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 12:29:50 -0000

On a related note, is CitiGroup the next ENRON? This article point to that conclusion... worth a read: http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/13/news/companies/...

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: An Open Letter to the Zune team about Zune 2

Joe Levi — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 21:18:28 -0000

@Opuntia,

I agree with you whole heartedly! I also use my computer (running Vista Ultimate) and stream my content to my XBOX360 (they cut off support for my original XBOX, so there goes streaming music to that room :: sigh :: ), and like for my ratings to carry through the entire experience.

It is interesting that iPod/iTunes has the 5-"circle" rating, and integrates very well with MCE and XBOX360...

I think the new Zune firmware is pretty killer (excluding the "broken heart" rating system), and the Zune software is a lot faster/more stable (but harder to navigate within and less intuitive).

So, my open letter to the Zune 2 team remains open, but I'm glad to know that I'm not alone!

Thanks for the comments, Opuntia!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: An Open Letter to the Zune team about Zune 2

Joe Levi — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 11:36:15 -0000

Anyone reading this that wants to try and make a difference, please head on over to the Zune.net > social > forums (specifically, here: http://forums.zune.net/1/7581/ShowPost.aspx#7581 ) and post your thoughts, requests, demands, etc. to the developers.

I've reposted this article there, with trackback link, of course.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: How creativity is being strangled by the law

Joe Levi — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:43:57 -0000

@Byrce,

Glad you enjoyed it. Larry makes some very valid points and makes one wonder how the root concept can really be all that difficult to understand.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Music Quest:

Joe Levi — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:07:36 -0000

@Bryce,

That's AWESOME! You have no idea how difficult this song/album is to find!

Mike was interested in buying the original, but an off-site archive as allowed by the Fair-Use Clause of the Copyright Act of 1976 will suffice! :)

Why don't you email me with how you're thinking of getting said fair-use copy to me for Mike. Joe ( the at symbol thingey ) JoeLevi.com

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Thanksgiving is a time to remember all that we have… and the genocide that it took to get it

Joe Levi — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:34:30 -0000

Re: Utah Highway Patrol Taser Man for Refusing to Sign Citation

Joe Levi — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:50:55 -0000

@KIRT,

Thanks for your input, and I don't totally disagree with you.

The driver (Jared Massey) was very disrespectful to the Trooper (John Gardner), but the Trooper was equally disrespectful.

Had I been in that situation, the first thing I'd have done it gotten my driver's license, concealed firearm permit, vehicle registration, and proof of insurance, had them ready (I've got an envelope in the glove box with all but the license and CFP in it to make things easier/faster), and had my hands clearly visible on the steering wheel.

When the Trooper (or any other LEO) approaches the car and asks for your license and registration, hand him/her the envelope, state your name, and if you have a CFP disclose that fact and let the LEO know where your sidearm is... for example: "Good afternoon, Officer. My name is John Smith, here's my registration, proof of insurance, driver's license, and Utah concealed firearm permit; my sidearm is on my right hip, there is no round in the chamber." Or, if your sidearm is elsewhere: "I do not have a firearm on my person or in the vehicle."

At this point just wait... the LEO will most likely return to his car and call in your license plate (if he hasn't already done so), and your driver's license number.

If you're a "good guy" there shouldn't be any flags on your record, and because you had everything ready and organized for the LEO, and because you were polite and respectful, he has no reason not to show that same respect toward you.

When the LEO returns he should tell you why he pulled you over, and should have your citation paperwork (if any) filled out and ready for you to sign.

Here's where you can exercise some "professional resistance."

If the LEO has left any part of the citation blank, you can write "blank" in the box (like the box that says how fast you were going). If the whole thing is blank, write on the citation "The areas marked were blank when I was asked to sign". Go ahead and read and sign the citation, most LEOs in Utah will tell you that it's not an admission of guilt, just that you have read and received a copy of the citation.

If the officer gives you a hard time about writing "stuff" on the citation, very politely say, "Sir, as I understand it, I'm signing a contract. As with any contract, I make sure to read and understand it, and mark any fields that were left blank at the time of my signing." He shouldn't have a problem with that logic, and if he does, apologize. He'll either void out that one and fill out another one, or will accept the one with your "notes" on it.

In any event, you were respectful, he was respectful, you noted your issues on the ticket (like "Officer would not tell me how fast I was going after I asked him 3 times"), and in most cases you're back on the road having lost only 15-20 minutes.

Now, to your comments. Both guys in the video let their ego interfere with their better judgment. The driver made bad choices, and the Trooper reacted poorly (then lied to the 2nd officer on scene about the event that took place before the taser was deployed).

Tasers need to be re-classified as "semi-lethal" weapons and not used in any instance other than using a firearm in the same manner would be acceptable.

The Trooper's reference to "riding the taser" and his attitude in general put him on the same level as the driver. He's a public servant, sworn to protect and to serve, and he should be held to a higher standard than the average driver off the street.

Wouldn't you agree?

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Utah Highway Patrol Taser Man for Refusing to Sign Citation

Joe Levi — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 17:30:06 -0000

@Jeff Miller,

I agree with you about the inappropriate use of force, and think (especially by lying to the other officer on scene) that he's not fit for patrol duty any more.

He should definitely get a formal reprimand and be removed from patrol.

... but those are just my opinions.

Have you written to the UHP Headquarters and Vernal Area Chamber of Commerce with your opinions yet?

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Mike’s Links Monday

Joe Levi — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 10:56:51 -0000

@Mike,

:: blush ::

Just keeping the tradition... BTW, did you get the link for the download? It's in the place I hid that thing that time.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: The Golden Compass: An attack on God?

Joe Levi — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:45:52 -0000

@Stealth123,

I'll agree with your sentiment that The Golden Compass is "more senseless eyecandy [sic] from Hollywood". No argument there.

Further, I believe it's a fundamental human right that we have the freedom to express ourselves (speech, press, 'blogs, comments, etc.) and a freedom to practice their religious beliefs (or lack thereof).

Where we differ in opinions is that I'm not complaining about Mr. Pullman's beliefs, his books, or the movie due out any day now.

You made the very good point that you were "prosthelized [sic] in [your] youth by random strangers on the street" and even by a friend who was "primarily interested in [you] for [your] soul. You felt "dirty and never talked to the guy again" because he had an another motive, one that you didn't know about, and one that if you had known about it, you probably would have avoided him and his friendship. Correct?

I have no qualms with Scientologists, atheists, or agnostics. I have no issues with their beliefs, although I do not share them.

The same is my point here: Pullman is self-admittedly doing exactly what your friend did to you, drawing you in by some premise but holding a hidden agenda once he's got your attention.

The purpose of this post was to educate people (parent, church leaders, etc.) about the hidden agenda behind the movie. If parents still choose to take their children to the movie after having been educated to Pullman's motives that's their choice.

Thank you for your comments and opinions!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: The Golden Compass: An attack on God?

Joe Levi — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:26:34 -0000

@Mindy Weldon,

You're partially correct, Mindy. The book is very subtle with its "propaganda," which, according to the author, is to be more acceptable to the Judeo-Christian populous. The movie is even less "offensive" and "dumbed down" for the general public.

Once the reader (or movie viewer) is caught up in the story they will want to read the books which go along with the story, which get progressively "darker" and strive to "kill a senile God" in the books. The series is called "His Dark Materials."

Yes Christians do teach free will. It's the same free will that teaches us to be sceptical about things around us, and to question, research, and educate ourselves.

It's that same free will, that same analytical thinking that allows us -- that encourages us -- to look beyond the surface of a message (in a book, a movie, even a person) and see what the true message is...

Once that message is known, an appropriate action (or inaction) can be taken. In this case, my conclusion was to spread the word about the author's stated intentions to a wider audience, and let that audience decide for themselves whether or not to watch it and read the books.

I do, however, value your opinion, and especially your recommendation about the age-appropriateness of the movie.

Thanks for stopping by, Mindy! I hope to see you back here again voicing your views on future articles! :)

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Song Search: "Stay" by Shakespeare’s Sister

Joe Levi — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:48:04 -0000

@Bryce, you rock!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: 35 Free (Legal) Music Downloads

Joe Levi — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:42:44 -0000

@Bryce,

That's pretty cool... too bad Winamp is owned by AOL now... such a tragedy...

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Building Reciprocal Links; thoughts for web developers

Joe Levi — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:25:04 -0000

@Karen,

I haven't been active with link exchanging all that much, I just know it's benefits... part of me says that I should be actively pursuing link building, but another part says "focus on the content of the post and others should find the article during their research and link to you anyway"...

That opinion is probably valid for hobbiest bloggers (like me) but the opposite for business blogs and for professional bloggers... what are your thoughts?

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Dynamically writing your META tags using ASP.NET C#

Joe Levi — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:08:04 -0000

Also, don't forget to add your "using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;" statement, or fully qualify your HtmlMeta m = ... line to reflect the right library.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: How to Get Free Stuff From Smith’s Deli; or An Open Letter to Smith’s Regarding Suggested Policy Changes

Joe Levi — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:16:06 -0000

@Marsha Gilford,

Thanks for reviewing my letter and for taking the time to respond publicly to the questions and concerns that it raised.

I am greatly interested in what your store director and the others that you mentioned will come up with. If you'd like to bounce ideas off me and/or my readers, we'd be happy to assist.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: How to Get Free Stuff From Smith’s Deli; or An Open Letter to Smith’s Regarding Suggested Policy Changes

Joe Levi — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 11:22:58 -0000

@Marsha Gilford,

That would be the simplest solution (individually packaged/coded deli items), but in cases like mine that would be a lot of wasted packaging (this blog is about green technologies and respecting the environment in which we live, amongst other things).

Another option would be to allow "aggregated packaging codes" to be printed at the deli (where I could buy 3 potatoes in one package, and the barcode has all three items, their combined weight, and combined price coded into it).

This would allow efficient use of packing materials (by allowing multiple non-related items in one package), and would decrease the time required to package items (placing potato wedges into the deli bag, pressing the "aggregate" button, adding the next item into the same bag, pressing the "aggregate" button, and repeating for each type of item).

This option might require more back-end programming with the deli computer systems, but the time savings (both for the deli attendant and for the checker -- U-Scan or Employee) and reduced product packing should pay for the time to develop the new functionality.

Just a thought.

In any event, thank you for your time and attention! :)

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Who is (866) 831-7288?

Joe Levi — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 15:54:15 -0000

@Gracie P.,

I'm the somewhat infamous Joe Levi formerly of BOWG Advertising, Iomega, and Totally Awesome Computers; and presently Senior Web Developer for Lifetime Products.

I'm glad you're enjoying my 'blog... What topics would you like to see more of?

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Who is (866) 831-7288?

Joe Levi — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:25:53 -0000

Here's another number they use to call you: 8668317288.

To help you find it from the search engines, here is is in another couple formats: (866) 831-7288, 866-831-7288.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Xobni Beta Invites Available

Joe Levi — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:51:30 -0000

@Harish, @Tristan, @Conrad,

Invites have been sent.

Two left for anyone else interested.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Ford claims they own your pics — if it’s got a Ford in it

Joe Levi — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 11:47:49 -0000

@fomocona,

Thank you for the follow up!

The thread that you're referring to contains the following quote by Whitney Drake of Ford Communications:

"We've been watching this discussion with interest and I'd like to clarify what is essentially a misunderstanding. [...] Ford has no problem with Mustang or other car owners taking pictures of their vehicles for use in club materials like calendars. What we do have an issue with are individuals using Ford’s logo and other trademarks for products they intend to sell. [...] The decision not to allow the calendars to be printed was made by Cafe Press, because we had gotten in touch with them in the past about trademark infringements on products they sold. [...] The Black Mustang Club, and any other Ford enthusiast club, are free to take pictures of their own vehicles for use in calendars or other materials as long as they don't use Ford trademarks in products that will be sold."

So, what does that all mean? You can take pictures of your Ford, and you can use the name "Ford" or "Mustang" but you can't use them in items that will be sold, you know, like anything available through Cafe Press or any other on-demand print shop. Which is where the problem began.

I'm sorry if I'm still confused, but it seems like Witney Drake's post is contradictory -- you can, but you can't.

In any event, the damage to Ford's reputation has already been done, and now Ford is playing the damage control game -- and, no offense, not very well.

Ford needs to publish a brand usage guidelines document for "enthusiast" or "club" use (which would apply to websites, printed materials, apparel, clothing, etc.), and built/offer a section on their website where enthusiasts can get high quality images of Ford trademarks, brands, logos, etc., for use in their publications.

Rather than offending their biggest supporters and fan-base, Ford needs to embrace them and leverage their enthusiasm to help solidify their brands and products.

Or not. Ford's already seen how quickly information about their negative actions flows through the internet and can damage their brand. It flows just as fast for positive actions.

The air is still pretty murky. We look forward to your further comment on the topic.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Twitter Updates for 2008-03-05

Joe Levi — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:02:42 -0000

@Tamir, Maybe lynching was too harsh a term, let's meet up at the Rock Band Tournament tonight. I'm the guy in the red Co-Pilot Mobile Navigation Software t-shirt.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Twitter Updates for 2008-03-05

Joe Levi — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:50:22 -0000

@Tamir,

It was really good being able to talk with you and clear the air regarding WeatherBug and its reputation amongst developers and power-users.

I was especially glad to hear that when a company (to remain nameless to protect the guilty) started some semi-deceptive bundling of your software with theirs that your company jumped in and cut the deal to try and save face (that's a bit of history that I wasn't aware of).

I look forward to digging in to your API and seeing how I can incorporate weather date into my existing and future apps.

Again, very good to meet you! Please keep in touch!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Silver and the New Economy

Joe Levi — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:16:31 -0000

@Ray, that's a very personal question -- and by that I mean it really depends on the person.

Any given person needs to assess a few things about themselves to start off... how much of a risk-taker am I? How much diversification do I have in my 401(k) the way it sits today? How close to retirement am I? What other assests do I have? Of those, how much are liquid?

Once a person has a good understanding about those parts of themself they can better answer the question "how much is enough"?

For the sake of example, I'll assume that you're like me, with around 30 years to retirement.

Your assests include some equity in your home, your furnishings, maybe a vehicle that's in the clear, a 401(k), and maybe a Roth IRA and/or CD, and a couple thousand in the bank.

You're not hurting, but you couldn't live forever on what you've got saved up now.

You're a bit sceptical of the economy and the market (especially given current events) and your faith in the US Dollar is waning fast.

You're seeing a resurgance in the metals market and are aware of the 200+ days of production that silver is short on the COMEX.

You think silver is poised to go higher, much higher -- but it's already fairly high, so you don't want to jump in with everything, just in case.

So, you've run the math. You're fairly happy with your 401(k)'s performance, so you don't want to tap into that. If your 401(k) let's you hold "paper silver" that might be a good diversification for you without cashing out...

You have about $5,000.00 in silver rounds and silver bars, but that's only 5% of your portfolio diversification. Is it enough?

I'd say probably not.

Though I wouldn't sell off other assets to acquire silver, I'd put extra disposible income (or income ear-marked for investments) into silver and do just like you're doing. Buy what you can in the dips.

Once you've got a few hundred coins, bump that up to 10-ounce bars. Once you've got a few hundred bars, bump that up to 100-ounce bars. Or buy a few of each at the time (a 100-ounce, nine 10-ounce, and ten one-ounce). If you can buy in 200-ounce lumps in the dips, you'll be doing pretty good -- if my crystal ball is working*.

When do you stop? As soon as you reach whatever diversification level makes you feel "safe."

What are your thoughts?

- www.JoeLevi.com

* = I don't have a crystal ball, I can't predict the future, so all this is speculative at best. Use your own judgement, and take my advice for what it's worth. I'm not making (or losing) any money by providing these opinions, just sharing my thoughts with anyone that wants to listen.

Re: What is a .MENC file?

Joe Levi — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:17:37 -0000

@John,

Based on everything I've read, you're out of luck. The files are encrypted with a key that's generated the first time the device boots. The MENC files are encrypted based on that key. Once you hard-reset you've lost the key that was used to encrypt them, and a new key was generated on the next boot (which is why you cannot access them now).

Your best option at this point is to restore from backup.

If you find another way to recover your files, please let us know!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: What is a .MENC file?

Joe Levi — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:18:47 -0000

@Sam, @Amanda,

(1) The first thing you need to do is turn encryption OFF so that new files aren't encrypted. This will make all newly created files non-encrypted, which will allow you to copy them to your desktop computer but also means they won't be encrypted on your storage card (which you may not want).

(2) Next, on your Windows Mobile phone, navigate to the folder that's got the files in it that you want to copy to your desktop computer. Tap and hold on the folder and choose COPY from the popup menu.

(3) Next, create a new folder on your storage card called something like "unencrypted files", then navagate into that folder. Tap and hold and PASTE the folder that you copied earlier. This will take a little bit of time, but when you're done, as long as you successfully completed STEP 1 (turn off encryption), you're done, you now have an unencrypted version of the files inside that folder.

Repeat steps 2 and 3 for any other files that you want to unencrypt.

Let me know how it goes.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: 4 Time-Saving Tips for Web Designers and Web Developers

Joe Levi — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:55:22 -0000

@Bobby,

Glad I was able to shed some light! Hopefully your Graphic Designer will learn something from my post.

Please encourage him/her to comment and correct any inaccuracies and voice an opinion from the "other side."

By more open communication between the two sides of the fence we'll be able to work better and faster together.

Thanks again for reading! Don't be a stranger!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: How to get better MPG with FuelFrog.com

Joe Levi — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:52:24 -0000

@Hank Lynch:

oops! Sorry about the typo! The hyperlink was correct, so you were still getting click-throughs! I've fixed it now... :)

Publishing the source is awesome, and thank you for that... as a web developer I'm going to have to wait for someone else (or yourself) to extend/improve it... I have the tools to do it myself, just not the "1337 sk177z."

You can disagree with me about the FuelFrog API, that's cool. From my perspective, Twitter a conduit for submitting data, an "API Light" if you will. For a more full-featured API one needs the ability to edit/delete entries, not just submit. Also, being able to pull JSON or XML data from a particular user account (if that user has permitted) for inclusion in a custom app (Windows Mobile, Widget,desktop app, etc.) is something that's missing in the current release. Even if one were to ping the user's Twitter feed they'd still have to scrub the data and apply all the logic that's already built into FuelFrog. Anyhow, that's where my API comment came from. :)

I've been reading about your pulse and glide (and push push coast) adventures, and agree with you somewhat. It's hard to do. I'm hoping, however, that given enough practice I can get in the habit of doing it unconsciously. I'm probably not being as aggressive as you were about it, just trying to notice more of the surroundings (grade, traffic, upcoming turns, stale-green stoplights, etc.) and allowing enough time to "regeneratively coast" (in a Prius there's coasting (no power being re-gen'd, no power being expended; and there's re-gen coasting, which slows you down because you're recovering power into the batteries). I'm going to try it for a few tanks and see how it goes.

Thanks for subscribing! I'm pulling your feed, too! :)

And thank you for the comments! Community participations is always appreciated!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: How to get better MPG with FuelFrog.com

Joe Levi — Wed, 14 May 2008 13:01:30 -0000

@Offbeatmammal:

That's an interesting use of a "fitness application" but a very good one! I can see how "using your vehicle less" ties in to walking/running/biking more.

Good thoughts! Have you contacted the FuelFrog guys to see if they might be interested in some of your code for extending their app?

Thanks for the visit (oh, and I posted a comments on your blog about a technical hiccup; ping me when that's fixed, if you don't mind).

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Farewell, Central Park

Joe Levi — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:27:54 -0000

@tiffany izatt:

I'm glad I'm not the only one out there that knows Central Park... and likes tomatoes on their burgers...

The point still remains, why should someone pay extra for an ingredient that they're not getting? And how can management/owners put up with their customers being charged for something that they're not getting?

Hopefully management/owners of that Central Park franchise will come across my post (or be told about it) and will take appropriate corrective measures to make sure their employees aren't stealing from their customers.

Unfortunately, it's too late to save this one... but at least other buyers will beware, and hopefully the problem will be corrected before too many customers abandon them as I have.

Thanks for the visit!

Gorgeous photos on your portfolio, BTW... :)

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Request for Input: Digis.net

Joe Levi — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:57:22 -0000

@McKay,

Hello again! Long time no talky!

Your testimonial carries a lot of weight, and I thank you for it... I researched a bit more about their service, and you're right about the throttling. I shouldn't have that problem, but I just don't know how much data I transfer a month.

Anyone out there know if there's a place in the DD-WRT Micro router that will track this for you?

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Twitter Updates for 2008-06-07

Joe Levi — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:47:42 -0000

@aswitzer,

Thanks for the feedback! The 3-level menu was quite a challenge (and unfortunately driven by the Designer who dictated the top-level items be graphics instead of text). Much thanks to GRC and the community for the menu... no Javascript at all! Wahoo!

The "Customer Care" menu item was a design element that I questioned as well... They wanted it "over there" to "stand out" from the other menus. Not very consistent, but 100% true to the original design.

Keep picking!!! Dig deeper! Your feedback is VERY appreciated!

- www.Joelevi.com (for http://prototype.lifetime.com )

Re: Twitter Updates for 2008-06-07

Joe Levi — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:12:16 -0000

@Aswitzer,

Thank you for the continued feedback!

The menu is based on the Script-Free 3-Level Menu 1.2 (Lifetime.com variant) which is based on GRC's multi-level script-free pure-CSS menu system (with thanks to www.CesarDaniel.info, Steve Gibson, and the GRC newsgroup community). It's really an elegant solution, though someone difficult to modify to the extent that we had to for this project. On any one Web 2.0 site, this menu framework really shines, I highly recommend it!

The translucency of the second- and third-level menu's was written with "progressive enhancement" (and a little MSIE proprietary CSS rules) to allow browsers that support the opacity property to show it, and those that can't don't. :)

Now we're getting into the colors and dividers and whatnot... I am PAINFULLY aware of the inconsistencies in colors and dividers among the different product pages (Trailers to Basketball to Tables, for example); I would have liked to re-use one set of CSS rules and simply swap out the color values for the different product pages, but the design called for something different. The way the site is developed is consistent (almost to the pixel) with the design. I'll pass this on to the project manager and the designer.

The Buy Now buttons, I think, were an after-thought, thrown in just because (actually, all the content on the product pages was an after-thought, originally the pages were just going to feature a big flash piece on the top -- still waiting on the .swf files -- what you see now is just what people without flash will see when they come to the pages: graceful degradation).

A note about the Buy Now buttons: they're actually text, block displayed, with a negative indent and a background image of the button; search engines and screen readers will see it as text. :) That goes for about 95% of all "graphical text" on the site.

Thank you again for your feedback! I should have a meeting with the client (my full-time employer) later today, I'll make sure to include your comments! They're greatly appreciated!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: 7 Ways to Get Better Fuel Efficiency — Without Buying a Hybrid

Joe Levi — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:41:50 -0000

@Shannon,

GREAT suggestions! Quick starts and stops are killers. I subscribe to the "get up to cruising speed as fast as you can without gunning it" theory as well, and have seen some good results.

I can't claim to be a hypermiler... but I can try to learn from them!

Thanks again for the comment! Don't be a stranger!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Firefox 3 (final) now available

Joe Levi — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:46:29 -0000

@McKay,

Well, for the world-record attempt I'd say it's because it's not as easy to track a full-download (a requirement for the record) via a torrent tracker as it is via a traditional mirror.

But I agree, torrent's are mainstream enough that they should have offered that as an option for the geeks among us. :)

In the meantime, I've downloaded it and am LOVING it! :)

- www.JoeLevi.com

PS: Good to hear from you again, Mook! How's the world down by the POTM these days?

Re: It’s not a modem

Joe Levi — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:31:22 -0000

Hi Larry, and welcome!

It's always nice to debate semantics... so buckle your seat-belt and hang on. :)

While I accept your premise I reject your conclusion... politely, of course.

Let's there is a remote village in a far off land. All adults are killed off by a plague, leaving only small children with only a basic understanding of linguistics and semantics. Somehow they survive and begin to rebuild their society.

One day, while digging in the dirt someone finds a "hard thing." They remember seeing a "hard thing from the dirt" that their parent had called "quartz." Since this was hard and came from the dirt, they decide to call it quartz. They then tell all their friends about it and eventually society begins calling all rocks "quartz." The society knows what the word "quartz" means to them, and therefore, successful communication has been accomplished.

One day after the children have all grown up, an outsider stumbles upon the remote village. This person knows what "quartz" is and hears them referring to "granite" and "boxite" and "topaz" and basic conglomerates as "quartz." The outsider assumes he'd stumbled into a society of idiots.

You state "there are millions of computer users in the world who have sufficient expertise to perform user functions, but lack the expertise, or even the interest, to tell the difference between a modem and a bridge." Agreed, with provisions: by "millions of computer users in the world" I'm afraid you're lumping in people on MySpace, AOL, etc. with the rest of the computer users, which would negate your use of the word "expertise" entirely.

But I digress.

Calling quartz a rock is fine. Calling quartz a mineral is also okay, and more accurate/descriptive than simply calling it a rock. Calling quartz a crystal further defines the object with properties that are understood to be common among other crystals. Further identifying a quartz "rock" as Chalcedony, Agate, Jasper, Aventurine, Tiger's eye, Amethyst, Citrine, Prasiolite, Rose quartz, Rutilated quartz, Milk quartz, Smoky quartz, or Morion (to name a few) further distinguishes the rock from other forms of quartz.

Have I dazzled you with techno-babble yet?

I bring all this up because Henri Louis Frederic de Saussure (1829-1905) was a Swiss mineralogist, but I think you were referring to Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) a Swiss linguist (the brother of René).

The point is, in my opinion, there is a clear distinction from basic logic and Saussure's basic notions of Saussurian thought in forming the central tenets of structural linguistics.

Logic tells us that just because quartz is a rock, that does not mean all rocks are quartz.

Further, Amethyst is quartz, but not all quartz is Amethyst.

If someone heard another person trying to describe a simple piece of sedimentary gravel as a quartz crystal, the person who knew what quartz REALLY was would think the other to be an idiot. Would they be wrong to do so?

A modem has nothing to do with networking, other than some modems can connect a computer to another computer which may (or may not) be connected to a network (such as the Internet).

So, back to our quandary: just because a village of idiots incorrectly calls the "blinky box that connects them to the Internet" a "modem" should we all do so?

Should we (who know better) accept this terminology? I'd argue no, we should not. Perhaps we should let those that use the term incorrectly continue to do so as a means or mechanism with which to identify the idiots in the village (then again, we already have AOL and MySpace to help with that differentiation).

Would my article have helped some of the idiots from the village learn the folly of their ways, and thereby provide an opportunity to overcome a certain level of idiocy? Perhaps.

In any event, those that wish to learn can now do so; those that do not wish to learn can choose to remain in the village with the other idiots. :)

Of course by "idiot" I do not intent any offense, rather, I use the term according to the original Greek ἰδιώτης, idiōtēs meaning a "person lacking professional skill," which in the example is appropriate.

To conclude, I speak to your tomato experiment; are they a fruit or a vegetable? Since a "fruit" is the ripened ovary (together with seeds) of a flowering plant, and the "tomato" itself is generally accepted to be the the "ripe red thing with the seeds inside" I think it's obvious that a tomato is a fruit.

Your experiment would seem to support this. Last year when you called them "fruit" you had a harvest. This year, when you've been calling them vegetable, you've had no harvest. Coincidence? ;)

Good points, and thank you for the comment!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: WordPress 2.6 “not found” permalink bug fix

Joe Levi — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 10:42:13 -0000

@rzrarti,

Glad I could be of assistance!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: WordPress 2.6 “not found” permalink bug fix

Joe Levi — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 10:59:45 -0000

@Kasper, @AbdulBasit Makrani,

You're welcome! Glad I could help! Don't be a stranger, come back and visit often. And if you have other questions feel free to ask them, if I can't solve them perhaps one of my readers can!

Thanks again for the visit and for the comment!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: WordPress 2.6 “not found” permalink bug fix

Joe Levi — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:00:54 -0000

@Robert,

Glad I could help! :)

Thanks for the visit and the comment!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Fire Alarm at Work

Joe Levi — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:01:24 -0000

Not more than 30 minutes after going back inside from the first fire alarm, we were forced to evacuate outside again for a second alarm.

No fire station response this time, and we were only out for about 5 minutes this last time, but still, another interruption... or chance to meet and mingle in the fresh air of a beautiful, over-cast day.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Secure Connection Failed error message with GoDaddy Certificate in Firefox 3.01

Joe Levi — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:41:44 -0000

@Scott,

Hey! What timing! I'm sorry that you're running into the problem, but it's nice to know I'm not alone.

The good news is I figured out the problem and updated the blog post with detailed instructions on how to correct it.

In a nutshell, the issue was resolved by reinstalling the Intermediate CA's (using the MMC not the right-click context menu on the .p7b file) AND disabling all purposes of the Go Daddy Class 2 Certification Authority certificate. The blog has instructions.

Ironically, FF2 and MSIE6 - 8b1 did NOT have the problem, so I assume it's got something to do with FF3's tighter security policies.

Let me know if it works for you.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: PayPal’s “killer app” — and how they screwed it up

Joe Levi — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:26:39 -0000

UPDATE:

It's now the middle of August, two weeks after PayPal said the 2.1 version of their plugin with FF3.0.1 support would be out. According to FF's "check for updates" mechanism, there are no updates.

Well, other than Paypal's plugin installation page saying it's compatible with Firefox 2.0 and 3.0... so here I go... installing...

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: PayPal’s “killer app” — and how they screwed it up

Joe Levi — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:33:35 -0000

PayPal Plugin 2.1.54 is now available for download and it ... wait for it ... wait for it... DOES work with Firefox 3.0.1! Whahoo!

Now, why didn't they push an auto-update through Firefox's update mechanism? Why didn't they mention the new version in the comment thread on the PayPal Plugin blog article?

Hmmmm.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Song of the Day: Let’s Go All the Way, Sly Fox

Joe Levi — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:20:31 -0000

@Glutengal,

Thank you! You're one of the vocal minority who really enjoyed it. (I really dig your site, by the way.)

I'm reducing it from once a day to once a week... or that was the initial plan... should I do Tuesday/Thursday and hit is twice a week?

The reason for the change over was this blog is initially about "Greener Living Through Technology" which encompasses backyard gardening and micro-farming (haven't written much about that yet), self-sufficiency, automating and improving ones life through technology (power generation, reducing power-consumption, alternate transportation, etc.), the politics that accompanies that, and, since I'm a web developer by trade, some web techie stuff, too...

I know, kind of an odd mix, but I'm kind of an odd guy.

Music just didn't fit in... at least not every day.

So back to my question, do you think once a week is good, or should I consider twice a week?

Thanks for your comment and for reading!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Song of the Day: Let’s Go All the Way, Sly Fox

Joe Levi — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:52:13 -0000

@Glutengal,

I got to thinking, if you liked my song of day, you might be interested in the website of a buddy of mine: http://www.cleverblue.com/wordpress/

Take a look... :)

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Save the planet… or tick off those that want to

Joe Levi — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:12:16 -0000

@Edison Team,
I've got to hand it to you guys, you're quick! No sooner did I have that published than you jumped all over it!

I've fired off an email to the address you listed... We'll see how long it takes to get a reply, and if that reply will be "oh yeah, your corporate firewall isn't letting you through. The next version may fix that..."

In any event, my criticizm remains, this product LOOKS cool, has great potential, is a big on the HUGE-side to download (28MB, really?), and due to the restrictive "registration/activation scheme" may be blocking out some good customers that aren't as vocal as I am.

That said, I'm not trying to be rude, I'm being realistic, I want you guys to have a killer product that's mutually beneficial to both your end-user and to your company, and hopefully frank, open discussions such as what we're having will help realize those objectives.

I'll update this post with the results... :)

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Does Barack Obama support infanticide?

Joe Levi — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:28:37 -0000

@mikedopp,

I read the article at www.factchecker.org (thank you for the link and the good read, by the way), and they detail in no uncertain terms (complete with citations) that Obama said he WOULD support an "infant protection" bill if it had the same language as the Federal version, then went ahead and opposed it when it did.

Just another illustration of how Obama bold-face lied to us.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Twitter Updates for 2008-08-17

Joe Levi — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:57:25 -0000

@McKay…

Yes… I’m old enough to have kids that old… Michael is nine…. NINE! Yikes…

How old are yours? Where are their pictures?

- http://www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Camping at Spirit Lake in the Uintah’s

Joe Levi — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:56:17 -0000

@McKay…

Yes… I’m old enough to have kids that old… Michael is nine…. NINE! Yikes…

How old are yours? Where are their pictures?

- http://www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Twitter Updates for 2008-08-18

Joe Levi — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:54:44 -0000

@McKay...

Yes... I'm old enough to have kids that old... Michael is nine.... NINE! Yikes...

How old are yours? Where are their pictures?

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Did selection of Biden just cost Obama the “tech vote”?

Joe Levi — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:48:36 -0000

@Hazard,

While I respect you as a person and your views, I feel that you've missed the points made in this post.

Obama promised to the country, in his own words, that wiretapping of Americans was wrong and that he would oppose granting immunity to those that participated in Bush's illegal wiretapping to the extent of a filibuster on any bill that would do that.

- He lied. Not only did he NOT filibuster as he promised, but he voted "for" granting immunity to those that illegally followed the dictates of a power-hungry president. How can you support someone that says one thing, then votes entirely opposite?

- He didn't respond to the calls from potential voters to make good on his word, he showed utter disregard. Not a characteristic we want in a president, wouldn't you agree?

- He shows signs of a dictator in his comment that "he'll fix it (his FISA vote) later." Isn't that the same thing Bush did? He passed an executive order "authorizing" the NSA to violate the Fourth Amendment in the name of "fighting terror" now Obama says he'll "fix it" by executive order, overthrowing a vote of Congress. Sounds like dictator material on both counts.

- Privacy of email is one thing, privacy of phone calls, web traffic, instant messages, VoIP, how can that not be considered to be covered by the Fourth Amendment?

- The war in Iraq was authorized by the Senate, the same Senate to which both Obama and Biden are members. Did either of them filibuster the Act that authorized the Iraq invasion? Have any of them filibustered any of the subsequent spending bills? No. Why? They've been content enough just to vote against them (when they have).

- Skyrocketing oil prices are due to prior administration's (including the Bush White House) failure to secure America's power needs. Obama has no plan to do this in the future.

- Our current "economic collapse" got its roots in the Clinton Administration, we're still feeling it now. The Bush White House hasn't fixed it, only slowed it. The President should start with his own house with regards to the economy. Has Obama vowed to enforce a balanced budget to keep the Government from going further in to debt, which results in the kind of inflation that we're beginning to see? No? Why not?

- The elimination of Human Oppression is a lofty goal. But it conflicts with the "stay out of other people business" that Obama opposes. Why should we force our morals on any other nation? It hasn't worked in Iraq.

- Child abuse. Where did that one come from? Don't we have laws against that domestically? Are they not being enforced? How will an Obama/Biden White House reduce this? Do they have a plan? What is it?

- We saw that Obama didn't care about the Fourth Amendment with his recent FISA vote, now with his selection of a running-mate we see that his disregard for AMERICAN'S RIGHTS is all but absent!

- A million other things... yes, there will always be other things. But to date I have yet to see an Oath of Office that says any elected official (including the President and Vice President) must "protect and defend" a million other things... or the price of oil... the economy... They do SWEAR as a condition upon their assumption of their office to PROTECT and DEFEND the Constitution of the United States of America, which includes the Fourth Amendment.

So you see, you may think that privacy in email, or phone calls, or any other online thing, or the books that you check out from the library or buy online are "trivial" but without the foundation of our Rights which are underscored by our Constitution, no candidate for office has any direction or any obligation to its People -- you and I. That comes first.

Sure, our invasion and occupation of Iraq is unethical and many say illegal; sure the economy stinks; and yes, the administration we have now is responsible for that, but WE THE PEOPLE elected them. WE THE PEOPLE control them, and I'll be damned if WE THE PEOPLE are going to casually give up our Constitutionally Enumerated RIGHTS without a fight.

Do NOT vote for someone based on their party affiliation! You're voting for a PERSON, not a party. You didn't elect the party leadership. They aren't held accountable to the people. REFUSE to give THEM the power that rightly resides in YOU!

You can (and should) vote for the candidate that you believe in, but DO NOT allow ANYONE to violate their Oath to Protect and Defend the very foundation of our Nation. Do not vote for someone just because you don't like "the other guy." Do not vote for someone just because you want a "change."

Vote for someone because they are trustworthy and keep their word.

Vote for someone because they are the right person for the job, NOT because they're the lesser of two evils.

Don't vote for someone because you don't think that the person that you want isn't going to win.

Don't be afraid to vote for someone ELSE other than someone with an R or a D after their name. It sends a message, especially when they don't win.

Remember the message we sent to Bill Clinton when he was up for re-election. Utah was the only state that he took 3rd place. In what has become a two person race, he took 3rd! Imagine if McCain or Obama (or both) came in 3rd and 4th in an election! Imagine the effect that would have on the country. Now stop imagining and go out and find a candidate that is PRO-CONSTITUTION, PRO-AMERICA, and PRO- whatever other beliefs you have (in that order), then VOTE FOR THAT PERSON! Don't compromise, vote for who YOU want to win, otherwise your vote is worthless as are so many others.

The more people that come to this realization the more the power will be eroded from the parties and restored to where they rightfully belong, in WE THE PEOPLE.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Did selection of Biden just cost Obama the “tech vote”?

Joe Levi — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:09:57 -0000

@McKay,

I agree, they are both the parts of the same problem.

The only option we have in November is deciding if we want to give up our own liberties, or make war with those that "they" claim would rob us of them...

There's a though... we've declared WAR on a group of people that would (allegedly) rob us of our life and liberty because they don't conform with their way of life and liberty... but isn't that what the Government is doing by eroding our liberties and sending us off to war?

Perhaps it's getting closer and closer to when we need to "declare war" on our own Government? Not with guns and bombs, but with the unseating of those who subject us to their will, rather than being subject to the will of THE PEOPLE.

I can't vote for McCain nor Obama in November... and Ron Paul dropped out, so now who? Who will raise the banner of freedom, both domestically and foreign?

- www.JoeLevi.com

PS: If you don't agree with my conclusions you're a terrorist. ;)

Re: Reject the REAL ID… in all its forms

Joe Levi — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:37:49 -0000

@Pete,

Thanks for the heads up! Any chance you can get a non-resident Driver's License from a neighboring state?

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Adventures building a backyard wind turbine

Joe Levi — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:02:09 -0000

Hi alterntiveamps here
I'm asking you to remove my pictures of my wind generator mount and remove the
ebay links from this blog.
you are under a copyright infringement law and I will prosecute both you and
your ISP.

In one case, a IOWA software company sent defamatory email and made defamatory
Web postings about an TEXAS company. An TEXAS court claimed personal
jurisdiction because the defamatory statements were intentionally aimed at an
TEXAS business and caused an injury (defamation) within the state.
I'M trying to save you a lawsuit
I will file here in liberty county courthouse a civil suite on December 1st
2008 unless this defamatory information is removed along with my photo.
I am also sending a notice to your ISP. requesting all information.
and to tell them You are under a copyright infringement lawsuit.
you have no authorization to use my business name or photos

Mr Barry Jones
dba alternativeamps

Website:
IP: 70.2.71.170

Re: Adventures building a backyard wind turbine

Joe Levi — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:03:04 -0000

Mr. Jones,

With all due respect, I don't think you're not trying to save me from a lawsuit, I think you're trying to coerce me into withdrawing my opinion of your product.

The Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA) provides legal protections for those that promptly take down content if someone alleges it infringes their copyrights. I have received your take-down request and have promptly removed the picture in question.

Links and business names, however, are not covered by copyright law. For example, I could write about an experience with a Toyota Prius (using and hyperlinking to both the company and brand names) without infringing on a company or trade name. The same applies to your company and product names.

Further, you make a claim of defamation. In law, defamation is the communication of a statement that makes a false claim. I reported my observation of the actual condition of the product (an opinion that others who have purchased your product share, per your feedback on EBAY). My observation states that there were bare spots and drips in the paint, which I can prove with photographs. Because it's a fact, it's not defamation.

I assume this will resolve your complaint and that no further action on my part is necessary.

- Joe Levi
www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Test your ability to “see” Color

Joe Levi — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:39:59 -0000

@Darby,

Wow! I'm impressed! I looked at other guys my age and they scored much worse than I did, so I was feeling pretty stoked.

Happy birthday, by the way! ;)

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Which Presidential Candidate foresaw the bubble bursting?

Joe Levi — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:56:02 -0000

@Darl Johnstonbaugh,
Once you've listened to or read "Ron Paul" you can really pick out his stuff. It's clear, it's logical, it makes you ask "why on earth has no one else thought of this before?!"

I haven't been able to attend any of his rallies yet, but I won't pass up hearing him if his travels bring him anywhere near.

I had a "Ron Paul for President" sign in my front yard for months and months...

And yes, the "two party system" is a thinly veiled attempt by "those in power" to keep their people in power, yet let we the people THINK that we have some say in the process.

Thanks for swinging by, reading a bit, and especially for commenting! Don't be a stranger!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Which Presidential Candidate foresaw the bubble bursting?

Joe Levi — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:58:57 -0000

@Joshpaul,

Any relation to Ron Paul? ;)

I haven't read his book yet, thank you for providing the link!

And thank you, also, for paying a visit and participating in the conversation! Hope to see more of your comments soon!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: T-Mobile @Home Service Problems

Joe Levi — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:34:45 -0000

@Michael,

Don't get me wrong, Vonage is AWESOME. They were the company that really shook up the whole telephone industry... and I'm thankful to them for it.

The reason for my switch was not due to dissatisfaction with Vonage or their service, rather, for their price.

For 1/3 the cost of Vonage, I'm getting almost the same thing through T-Mobile.

In my experience with T-Mobile @Home, the call quality is not quite as good as Vonage, the uptime is not quite as good as Vonage, and the user-options and configuration options can't hold a candle to Vonage.

Once it's up and running though, it does what I need it to do, and the price is much better.

If Vonage were to cut their prices by 2/3, I'd switch back in a heartbeat! I think $9.99 for local and domestic long-distance (with voicemail, call forwarding, etc, etc) is really the right price. Anything more than that is "greedy."

Thank you for your comments! Don't be a stranger!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: T-Mobile @Home Service Problems

Joe Levi — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 19:55:13 -0000

We found a sneaky way around VoIP problems with the T-Mobile setup...

Dial *73 then the 10 digit number of one of your cellphones. This will forward all incoming calls on your VoIP line to your cell phone.

Since the forwarding is being done before the call jumps to VoIP the call quality isn't affected. Since all incoming calls to the VoIP line are included in the $10/month and you have unlimited minutes between any of your T-Mobile lines, this won't cost anything extra.

You can still make outgoing calls via the VoIP line without any changes.

All this has worked out great for me, but at then end of my two-year contract on that line I'm going to go with Les.net instead.

Lemme know if you try this and it works for you, or if you have any other recommendations for reduced rate VoIP providers.

-www.JoeLevi.com

Sent from my Windows Mobile® phone.

Re: Syracuse City Council Citizen’s Report for 09/23/2008

Joe Levi — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:50:39 -0000

Followup:

The Standard Examiner ran a story that covered part of this Council Meeting: http://www.standard.net/live/news/144348/

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Backyard Wind Turbine, Part 1

Joe Levi — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:37:59 -0000

@JoshPaul,

Keep an eye out for Part 2 where I'll go into the details of my city's Land Use Ordinance and walk you though my thought process.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Syracuse Mayor

Joe Levi — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:03:50 -0000

@P~,

Thanks! No problems with the edits, BTW, just wasn't thinking.

Regarding the Councilmember selection conspiracy (which looks like the right word to use), I plan on attending the next City Council and during Public Comment point out the statutory obligations of the Mayor and that he was negligent in fulfilling them... and that's the reason why we had to select a new Councilmember in the first place.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Syracuse Mayor

Joe Levi — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:00:35 -0000

Loretta Park, a reporter for the
Standard-Examiner (Davis Bureau) ran a story entitled "Mayor accused of shirking duty" in the Saturday, September 27, 2008 edition of the Standard-Examiner (http://www.standard.net/live/news/144348/).

Further, she reported that "[Todd] Godfrey [the City Attorney] said in a phone interview that he had not reviewed the city code before the meeting, so he was unaware the city code was more restrictive than the state code."

Wow. The City Attorney told a reporter that "he had not reviewed the city code"? Isn't that his job?

Definitely worth a read.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Your Dollar is Worth 50 Cents, Part 1

Joe Levi — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:55:11 -0000

Thank you for the excellent article, Angela!

For my regular readers, I'd like to introduce my first guest-blogger: Angela! No, she's not an imaginary friend, she a real person!

Hopefully we'll get to read a lot of her insights in the future!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Principal Financial Group 401(k) “Black Tuesday” Restrictions

Joe Levi — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:06:43 -0000

More information:

Subject: Important Information about the Principal U.S. PROPERTY SEPARATE ACCOUNT
Received: Thursday, 09/25/2008, 09:18 PM

The Principal Financial Group® is a company focused on helping customers achieve long-term financial security. We closely monitor and actively manage holdings in our investment options available to retirement plan participants.

Because of the current state of the real estate market, The Principal® has taken action to protect participants’ interests in the Principal U.S. Property Separate Account (“Separate Account”). We are implementing a pre-existing contractual limitation in your employer's group annuity contract which will allow us to manage the Separate Account and satisfy withdrawal requests over time and fairly among all those who request a withdrawal.

Effective Friday, September 26, 2008 at 12:01 a.m. Central Time, we are applying a built-in contractual limitation which will delay the payment of most withdrawal requests. Those requests will be honored proportionately as sufficient cash becomes available for distribution, in accordance with the terms of your group annuity contract. This limitation applies only to this Separate Account and does not apply to other retirement plan separate accounts or Principal Mutual Funds.

Background
The Separate Account, managed by Principal Real Estate Investors, LLC, is unlike most other retirement plan investment options because it invests primarily in owned real estate rather than securities. These holdings include developed, commercial properties such as warehouses, office buildings and retail properties. Unlike public securities sold on an exchange, real estate assets are sold in private transactions that take a period of time.

The recent turmoil in the credit markets has compounded already challenging conditions in the real estate market, resulting in a sharp slowdown in the sale of commercial real estate assets. In addition, cash flows out of the Separate Account have outpaced new contributions as investors have decided to engage in rebalancing transactions or otherwise move assets from real estate to other investment strategies.

While the Separate Account has historically maintained sufficient cash to satisfy withdrawal requests, the combination and duration of these market factors has prompted the decision by The Principal to implement a withdrawal limitation for the first time in the 26-year history of the Separate Account.

The pre-existing contractual limitation allows Principal Real Estate Investors to manage the Separate Account consistent with its investment strategy and objectives. It also provides for payment of withdrawal requests over time proportionately among all customers. While available cash from future sales of real estate assets will be used in part to satisfy withdrawal requests, Principal Real Estate Investors will continue to manage the Separate Account, including use of available cash, in the best interests of plan participants. Sales will not be made under unfavorable circumstances in order to have cash available for withdrawals or any other purpose.

Outstanding withdrawal requests will be paid proportionately with other pending requests as sufficient cash becomes distributable, as determined by Principal Life Insurance Company. Payments will be based upon the unit value as of the date of the distribution.

Death and disability benefits are not affected by this limitation and will be processed as usual. In addition, transfers and contributions into this Separate Account are being accepted as usual.

Gains, losses, and cash flows related to this Separate Account do not affect the general account of Principal Life Insurance Company or any other separate account.

The Principal Financial Group: Financial strength and stability during turbulent times

Additional Information
Please read this Q&A and the letter from the portfolio manager for additional details. If you have any further questions after reviewing these documents, please contact the Client Contact Center at 800-547-7754.

The Principal U.S. Property Separate Account is available through a group annuity contract issued by Principal Life Insurance Company, a member of the Principal Financial Group, Des Moines, IA 50392.

Insurance products and plan administrative services are provided by Principal Life Insurance Company, a member of the Principal Financial Group® (The Principal®), Des Moines, IA 50392.

Re: Principal Financial Group 401(k) “Black Tuesday” Restrictions

Joe Levi — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:59:36 -0000

@Nikki,

I would go through their policies and find out when a payout can be delayed, and see if you can't find some loophole or a number that says when and how payouts are to be made. Possibly file a complaint with your state's Atty General's office, and maybe the FDIC. We feel for you! Let us know how things go.

@Bill,

No one knows... which is part of the problem with the 401(k) system. My employer tells me the only way I can "cash out" my 401(k) into an IRA is to quit or be fired.

@Steve,

That's amazing. When you get your forms why don't you scan them and put them on the web somewhere. If Principal is unwilling to publish them perhaps we, the people, need to take matters into our own hands. Granted, they may be copyrighted materials, so you might have to find a host that's located in a country that doesn't acknowledge our copyright laws to host the files. Contact the guys at the Pirate Bay and see if they can help. :)

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Principal Financial Group 401(k) “Black Tuesday” Restrictions

Joe Levi — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:48:42 -0000

I was just interviewed by the Wall Street Journal regarding this issue. She found my article and has read all of your comments.

I'll reply with any information she gives me regarding publishing of her story as soon as I know more.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Principal Financial Group 401(k) “Black Tuesday” Restrictions

Joe Levi — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:48:42 -0000

Re: Principal Financial Group 401(k) “Black Tuesday” Restrictions

Joe Levi — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:48:42 -0000

Re: Principal Financial Group 401(k) “Black Tuesday” Restrictions

Joe Levi — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:48:42 -0000

Re: Principal Financial Group 401(k) “Black Tuesday” Restrictions

Joe Levi — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:48:42 -0000

Re: Principal Financial Group 401(k) “Black Tuesday” Restrictions

Joe Levi — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:48:42 -0000

Re: No Gas in September

Joe Levi — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:25:05 -0000

Ironically, I haven't been riding my bike much at all for any number of reasons: Daughter's bike has a flat tire, have to carry a whole bunch of crap in to work with me, late getting to work, have to work late into the evening and don't have any lights... okay okay, I'm just fat and out of shape. Happy now?! ;)

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Urban Legends Debunked: Cell phones

Joe Levi — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:30:05 -0000

@Jay,

Thanks for the clarifications on 1800Free411! And you're right, the other 411 services that I mentioned chew up your minutes, too.

I'm happy to learn about government and residential listings being offered by your company, that's great!

Now, if we could only have some was to "program" our own numbers in for 411, 211, etc., wouldn't THAT be great?

Thanks again for the comment and the info!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: “Joe the plumber” meet “Joe the Web Guy”

Joe Levi — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:53:13 -0000

Just bought the domain http://www.JoeTheWebGuy.net

sweet...

Re: Who just called me?

Joe Levi — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:05:03 -0000

@Darby,

I haven't used AnyWho.com before, but will in the future! :)

Thanks for the tip.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: 2008 Election Results

Joe Levi — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:19:23 -0000

Forecast:
Obama: 349
McCain: 189

Re: Backyard Wind Turbine, Part 5: Building and Installing the Wind Turbine (2 of 5)

Joe Levi — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:49:57 -0000

@Phil,

Thanks for the kind words!

I haven't gotten hit too much with questions, but I'm happy to try and field them in the comments so the community can benefit (you're welcome to answer comments, too!).

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Utah’s Davis County School District FAIL

Joe Levi — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:37:12 -0000

@Mr. B,

Everyone makes mistakes, it's just the irony of this mistake that makes it humorous. Elementary education is all about reading, writing, arithmetic, and history. It should at least cover "how to use spell check." They're a school district for cryin' out loud! ;)

Take your site, for example. It's about music. For you to fail as humorously as the Davis School District, you'd have to say something like "Today Milli Vanilli's founding member, Nelley Furtado, just won an Emmie for best male vocalist to cover 'Creep'."

Which would be awesome... ;)

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Utah’s Davis County School District FAIL

Joe Levi — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:47:05 -0000

@Mr.B,

Which would be even AWESOMER!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: The Destruction of the US Dollar?

Joe Levi — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:55:45 -0000

@Bryce,

Not a bad site from an information stand-point, but I have a hard time with Anarchists and anti-Semites who, although they have the right message, it's peppered with their radical agendas and hate-speech.

I try to be controversial to kick people into looking at what's going on around them, present my findings and opinions, and invite open thinking and conversation.

How am I doing?

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Recession Taking Toll on Independent Web Content

Joe Levi — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 12:53:05 -0000

@Joel Dare,

I agree with you about donations. There are some sites that make their living on donations (DownsizeDC, for example), but their "begging for money" turns off a lot of visitors (like fund-raising times on PBS stations).

My yearly hosting and DNS charges are less than $200/year, with web access about $50/month. Luckily, I have enough advertising revenue coming in to cover both, plus be a net $300 up to cover my time. Effectively, this means I break even with my hosting, access, and wage with my hobby. Not everyone can say that, which is a shame.

I've done the shirt selling thing, the ad selling thing, the Google ads thing, the donate if you found this useful thing, and am trying to focus on what works...

I'm impressed with your impressions, I get between 1 and 2 hundred per day, you're getting a couple thousand? That's remarkable!

- www.JoeLevi.com

BTW: Good to hear from you again! It's been far too long!

Re: EPIC FAIL: The Day the Zune 30’s died

Joe Levi — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:13:12 -0000

It should be noted, the official statement from Microsoft is "Will you update the firmware before the next leap year (2012)? Yes."

Notice how the statement was not "Will you update the firmware to correct this bug in the internal clock driver befoer 2012?"

They only promised to update the firmware again sometime, at least once, before 2012, but they have not committed to actually fixing the bug at all!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: EPIC FAIL: The Day the Zune 30’s died

Joe Levi — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 14:40:52 -0000

@JoeSmith,

I don't know if I should justify your comment with a reply or not, especially since you provided a bogus email address and all.

Regarding my one and only post on the Zune Insider forums, I didn't advise anything (opening the case, or not). Here on my own blog I re-posted Matt from Microsoft's advice to NOT open the case (I even bolded that phrase in both posts).

Next, the Zune 30 wasn't stuck in an infinite loop. It wasn't stuck in a loop at all. It was stuck in a "waiting for the day to change to a valid day" and 365 isn't a valid day (0-365 = 366 days) for the Zune 30. But you're right, the battery will eventually drain to its "standby" state after just a few hours of being stuck at the "white line of death." Unfortunately you had to restart your device and re-create the "while line" screen about 30 times before the battery was drained enough to make the clock lose track of that day it was. So what you advise wouldn't have worked without repeating dozens of times, which you failed to mention.

I didn't "shoot my mouth off" at all. I stated that not handling leap year in a clock driver was an "epic fail" especially when it "bricked" the entire Zune 30 population in the world.

The point of my post was simple: we bought a product that WILL fail one day every leap-year. That's worth (1) a commitment from Microsoft to repair the bug, and (2) compensation of some sort (perhaps credit for a free song or two).

Next, you don't know much about USB devices, let alone devices powered by Windows CE (such as the Zune). Yes, the device is somewhat frozen, but certain portions of the software were still working, the radio, for example, was reported to still work (if it was playing at the time the "freeze" took place it was still playing after the "freeze"). This tells us that only part of the device was unresponsive. In any event, you can flash firmware to a Windows CE device over USB even if it's "frozen" or "unresponsive," it doesn't have to be recognized by the OS as a USB device, you can talk to the device itself without going through the OS's USB subsystem. I've done this many many times with "bricked" Windows Mobile phones (which also run Windows CE).

So, my point behind this post was to let my readers know about the failure, and to provide a single point where they could come for updates regarding the failure. And also to call Microsoft to task for "making this right" by fixing the root problem, and compensating those affected in an appropriate manner (credit for free song or two).

So, I think I've thought things through fairly well, wouldn't you agree? I think I've thought things through much more thoroughly than certain persons posting comments here.

Anyhow, thank you for the chance to respond to your comment, and for commenting here in the first place.

Next time make sure you have your facts straight and don't hide behind a fake email address. Be man enough to stand behind your convictions.

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: EPIC FAIL: The Day the Zune 30’s died

Joe Levi — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 14:47:30 -0000

Re: EPIC FAIL: The Day the Zune 30’s died

Joe Levi — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:03:28 -0000

@Bryce, @Darb,

Glad I could be of assistance!

For every one else reading, my Zune 30 continued to "white line" until early this morning (don't know when, I fell asleep).

However, around 10am Mountain Time I went to check, the battery was gone, so I charged it up for a while, when it came up the symptom was gone.

Now I'm waiting for the Zune to fully charge, which is taking a long time, and I'm waiting for Microsoft to release an update that fixes the root cause of the problem (the bug in the internal clock driver).

@JoeSmith,

Here's the post on the Zune Insider forum that JoeSmith was referring to when he said I "shot my mouth off." You decide...

http://zuneinsider.com/archive/2008/12/31/30gb-... @ Wednesday, December 31, 5:51 PM

So the "official" word from the Zune team is "just wait for tomorrow, it’ll fix itself" and that you're not doing anything to fix the root problem (like fixing the internal clock driver to recognize leap year properly)?

So, we should expect the same problem to occur with our Zune 30's on EVERY Dec 31st in a leap year, right?

Sure, that's not for another 4 years, but isn't a bit arrogant to know about the bug and to not commit to fixing it, knowing it will only surface again in the future?

How about compensation for not being able to use our Zune's for the day?

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: EPIC FAIL: The Day the Zune 30’s died

Joe Levi — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:35:01 -0000

Thanks to DoomHamster (http://twitter.com/DoomHamster/status/1097298818) for a link to the source code and detailed explanation of the bug! http://tinyurl.com/7ja624

In summary, an unhandled case in a while loop, causing said loop to infinitely repeat until the condition is met.

This means that JoeSmith was correct in his assessment about being stuck in an infinite loop, but since the Zune has a multithreaded OS, it didn't lock all functions of the device, just those relying upon the date (thereby nullifying his assumption that the device was bricked and could not be updated via connecting to a computer).

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: FireFly

Joe Levi — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 12:03:58 -0000

@Rhonda Tipton,

Great show! Makes me wish I knew how to cuss in Chinese though... (those who've watched the show know what I'm talking about).

Funny about the Space-Western comments, that is what Lucille Ball sold "Star Trek" as to the network executives: Cowboys in Space.

Thanks for the comment!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Projects

Joe Levi — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:42:18 -0000

I have several feeds that I expose with my site, articles, friendfeed, pictures, fuelups, etc.

If you're looking for the site feed, it's http://feedproxy.google.com/GreenerLivingThruTe...

Let me know if you have any further complications or questions. :)

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Product Review of the Antec NSK1380 microATX Chassis

Joe Levi — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:16:50 -0000

More info on this case at http://www.yougamers.com/forum/showthread.php?p...

Re: Product Review of the Antec NSK1380 microATX Chassis

Joe Levi — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:16:17 -0000

Yes, I was pushing the limits... But honestly, if the case/PSU could not handle all the components, why would Antec design it to hold them all, then include the capability on their spec sheets and sell sheets?

Though it may not have been Antec's intended use for the case, they built it so one could. Who should have known better? The guy who looked at the case specs before he bought it, or the engineers at Antec who designed it (hopefully) knowing that there was no way it could handle everything they designed to be able to be put in it?

Thanks for the feedback though! You'll be happy to know that I was able to re-purpose the case. I had to install a 120mm fan on the side of the case and run extension cables, but it now houses a Intel Core dual and 2GB of single-stick RAM with a 1TB Green HDD from Western Digital and a DVD burner. No additional cards.

Re: Poor Customer Experience with SuperbrightLEDs.com

Joe Levi — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:05:04 -0000

Just an update: It turns out they snail-mailed me a replacement AND Pre-Paid Mailing label at the same time (which was contracry to what their customer service rep told me on the phone). I got it Friday, installed the replacement lamp, and all worked well. The "wrong" lamp was at work, so it'll go back in the mail to them on Tuesdays' shipment.

I'm still a bit wary about their customer service, but at least they did the right thing (even if they told me they wouldn't).

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Finished Baby Step Number One

Joe Levi — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 11:28:02 -0000

@Bryce,

Awesome! Congrats on step 1!!! I'm lucky to not have any student loans to pay back... I made it all the way through with a Pel Grant, a Native American scholarship, and money out of pocket.

My wife doesn't have her B.S./B.A. yet, but she does have her A.S. and is okay with not getting "the rest" just yet. When she does she'll be using a Pel Grant and some other scholarship(s) to make up for the rest. Debt is evil.

My dad has loaned me money in the past, but he always tells me "I don't owe him anything" when I try to pay it back. Without doing so deliberately he's following Dave's rule of "never loan money to friends/family -- if they need it, GIVE it to them."

Next up for us is a 0% Discover card (which jumps up to a gazillion percent in July), then another Discover card at 5.99%, then a car loan, then the next baby-step, then the house.

It feels so liberating! Thanks for sharing your story!!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: Finished Baby Step Number One

Joe Levi — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 11:45:42 -0000

@Travis,

Congrats on finishing steps one AND two! That's awesome!!

I just cut my piddley 4% (plus 2% employer match)401(k) contributions and will be putting all of that toward debt starting this paycheck (I'll turn it back on again in step 4).

My wife and I are prepping our "envelopes" for next pay-day. Everything looks good on paper. We already used part of our tax refund to pay over $1k of the first bill, and we're already paying double the minimum payment, so we're already working on step two. The disappointing news is that my projects show it taking 2-3 years (or more) at current "Gazelle speed" to knock 2/3 of the bills out, leaving us with one more (plus our home). Hopefully our "debt acceleration worksheet" will be enough incentive to keep us at this level of energy.

Step 3 will take another 10.76 months (round that up to a year for some buffer), so before I'm on to step four, it'll likely be 4 or 5 years down the road. ACK!

Again, congrats on your progress! Keep me up-to-date!

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: National Patriot’s Medal and the NRA Golden Eagles

Joe Levi — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:57:28 -0000

@Bryan Sloat,

LOL... you've done your homework! The nomination is enough for my ego... for an extra $200 per year I could expand my garden, buy a thousand+ rounds of .45 ACP, etc... ;)

- www.JoeLevi.com

Re: National Patriot’s Medal and the NRA Golden Eagles