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Forget the word “should.”

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized , , ,

After talking with another former classmate/newsroom-mate, I wanted to bring out the highlight from yesterday. I’m not saying this would have saved Brian, but it was life-changing for me, and I’d say there’s probably a 10% chance it can be life-changing for you, too. If you’re one of the 90%, it’s more likely to be merely helpful.

The problem is the word “should.” And while I generally think striking words from the English language is a bad idea because language control is thought control, this is one instance where I don’t think thought control is a bad thing. “Should” is a club that we use to beat ourselves up with far too often. Read more

I got a Chromecast. I think you should too.

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized

So, I read about the Chromecast, wondered how it could possibly work, and thought it might be too good to be true.

But, since it costs $35, I thought I’d take a chance on it. I’m glad I did. Think of it like this: You can use a smartphone or a tablet like a remote. Pull up what you want to watch on Youtube or Hulu Plus or Netflix, tap an icon, and boom, it moves over to your TV screen. You can rewind or fast-forward with the mobile device. Or look for more videos and queue them up.

And it’s not at all hard to set up, which was what I wondered about. Read more

The 11 Neff Hall chop shop

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized ,

I saw an IBM PS/2 Model 55SX at an estate sale this past weekend. It took me back to my first non-food service, non-retail job, doing desktop support at Mizzou.

Well, as a precursor to doing desktop support, they tried me out just building and tearing down machines. I worked out of Room 11, which was at the time a dingy, dark, musty place. But they pay was good and it meant I got to spend my time between classes taking computers apart all day, and that was nice.

My first assignment was to build IBM PC 330 and PC 350 computers to sit on professors’ desks. These were 50 MHz 486DX2s. They were a bit outmoded by then, but they were a lot better than what they were replacing, which was, in most cases, a PS/2 Model 55SX, which was a 386SX running at either 16 or 25 MHz. My second assignment was to disassemble those Model 55SXs, revert them back to their factory configuration, and sort out all of the add-ins so we could use them to upgrade other machines, and then, sell whatever was left as surplus. Read more

Leaving his mark. Or his Matt.

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized

Matt, one of the higher ups in my department, departed from the company on Friday. Rich, a coworker I’ve now worked with in two different shops in two different states, got Matt’s office. Rich grew fond of wandering in to Matt’s office at random times during the week with a tape measure, just to make Matt wonder.

But Matt got the last laugh.

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Why I’m a one-space-after-a-period guy

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized

I found this argument in favor of two spaces after a period. I favor the single space, but not for any of the reasons he explained.

I’m also not a graphic designer. I had to take a couple of classes on design and layout, and I was competent. But mostly efficient. I was known for being the first one in the room to finish a design, and it would always be at least middle-of-the-pack. On a tight deadline, I was the guy you wanted finessing QuarkXPress. Read more

The hall of famer lets me down

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized

My check engine light came on this morning. I’ve been driving this Honda Civic since May 2003, and this is only the third time that’s happened. But the other two times were nuisance lights. The car ran fine, so I bought a new gas cap, replaced the cap, and the light went off.

This time was different. I confirmed it when I turned the corner and tried to accelerate to 25 miles per hour. The car acted like I was asking it to go a hundred and twenty-five.

After 10-plus years and 194,000-plus miles, I had my first mechanical problem. For the first time, I was going to the mechanic for something other than arbitrary, mileage-based maintenance. Read more

The pizza procession

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized

There’s a plaza over by our house that’s home to, among other things, a pet store, a license office, a Chinese food joint, a mattress store, a haircut place, a Radio Shack, another cell phone store, and a pizza joint. My wife was there last week, getting ready to pull out of the parking lot, when a funeral procession approached. She stopped to stay out of the way.

The pizza delivery guy behind her didn’t.

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Bombshell: Ballmer steps down from Microsoft

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,
Bombshell: Ballmer steps down from Microsoft

I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Steve Ballmer is retiring. It’s time. If anything, I agree with the people who say he would have been better off retiring years ago. But I really didn’t expect it. In spite of the immense pressure to step aside, at least in public he never gave any indication of having any intention of doing so. Read more

When a photocopy isn’t

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized

Thanks to Dan Bowman for reminding me of this: Due to a bug in the compression engine in some Xerox photocopiers, copies aren’t necessarily identical from generation to generation. For example, it’s very easy for a “6” to become an “8.” Not good.

There was a Dilbert cartoon where the pointy-haired boss, to Wally’s chagrin, proofread photocopies. Suddenly that joke doesn’t seem quite so funny.

As cheap as storage is, I have a hard time understanding why copiers use lossy compression. There are good lossless compression algorithms out there that ensure each copy will be as close to identical as the scanning hardware permits. And I understand the desirability of image enhancement technology–it would make fuzzy documents easier to read–but such a feature should be optional, so as to avoid situations like this.

If you use Xerox equipment, be sure to bug your rep for a fix. Early and often.

Goodbye Amazon Affiliates, hello Viglink

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized , , , , , , , ,

I’ve been an Amazon affiliate for more than a decade, which meant that if I mentioned a product, posted a link to Amazon and someone clicked the link and bought it, I got a little bit of money. It didn’t make me rich, but in a good year, I made a couple hundred dollars, which paid for the upkeep of the site.

Well, Amazon and the state of Missouri are fighting, so Amazon is discontinuing the affiliate program for Missouri residents. The loss won’t break me, but by the same token, it’s nice to have that money coming in to pay for things like equipment upgrades. I found Viglink, and I’m going to give that a try.

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