Computers and the environment

I've always been a good greenie. My wife and I joke about it because we don't usually associate people with things, we don't put people into baskets... at least I try my best to flex my inner Buddhist by not judging people. It's something I'm aware of from my early teens.

However, there are times where I must put myself in a basket with my green hat on and talk about saving the environment in which I live in.

I'm proud to say that my wife and I combined use less water than a single person in Sydney. Our water bill tells us how much water we should be using, and it's less than what a single person is depicted to use. That's something we're proud of because we don't even try to save water. We just don't use much.

We are avid recyclers and not just from cans and bottles. I recycle anything by putting it back into use. The other day I had a client tell me their iPhone was no longer changing in the car. Anyone else in IT would have said "buy a new charger, it's broken". No. I pulled the charger apart and fixed the dry solder joint. A couple of weeks ago I repaired a laptop a customer dropped off and said the repair bill was going to cost almost as much as a new model. Well, I said I can fix it, but you'll have to pay for the parts and labour. He went to buy another laptop from the local JB Hifi. I fixed the cracked screen with a new one I had to buy. But I fixed the battery by pulling it apart and repairing a loose wire and a dry solder joint. Saving a battery from the land fill.

Now, being in IT, I have to keep abreast of cutting edge computing. However, I'm a little shocked that I'm seeing what I'm seeing. I received a new catalogue (Cattle Dog) from one of my suppliers today only to see replacement computer power supplies with no less than 800 Watts. Some going up to 1500 Watts and I'm sure there's higher if I look. So I started to look at why. And CPU's, motherboards, Video cards, etc. all consume more power.

I can understand why. PC's are more powerful than before. My current computers are nothing like what I had 10 years ago. Which is a fair call. However, you always hear about things getting more powerful but never do you hear about lower power consumption.

One of the services I offer in my business is products that match the customers needs. 95% of PC purchases are too highly specced for a customers needs. So I try to sell a computer that fits the needs of the customer. Not some overkill media box that you can produce Toy Story 17 on.

The advantages are that you get a smaller, quieter, more affordable and less energy taxing system. So you same money buying it and you save more money using it. It does the job when all you do is email, read blogs, chat and maybe do some basic home accounting.

The systems I sell all run Linux as well.

The main reason for this is, it cost nothing to purchase. Heavily reducing the purchase price of a PC. It's less taxing on system resources, so a computer while sitting idle will use less wattage than one running other operating systems.

If it uses less power, you save on your electricity bill, have a longer batter life, have more system resources for other tasks and don't need such a large power supply.

The good thing is laptops are more popular than ever. They use very little power in comparison to a desktop PC. However, when a laptop catastrophically fails, it's just about on its way to the scrap heap. When a desktop fails in the same manner, parts can be replaced economically.

Manufacturers are getting better at making computers with the environment in mind. No heavy metals, no mercury, or other materials that can cause significant impacts in the long run. However, that doesn't change the fact that they have put in a whopping great big power supply.

I think I'll stick to selling 'under powered' and second hand computers to help keep them off the landfills.

Is your computer too powerful for your needs?

A friend finally broke his cherry....

A mate of mine who I have motioned towards regarding music in the past has finally broken his stage cherry and got up to perform live, in front of an audience for the first time in his life. I've been telling him it's something he needs to do to overcome his fear of public performance, and if he's serious about his band and his music, he'll have to expose himself to this kind of thing.

For years he's wanted to become a rock star and now his band can finally get out of the back room in his house, onto the serious side of things while hopefully keeping it fun.

He always seems to be amazed that I can just get up and play, impromptu, on-call. In truth, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm just good at winging it. However, I've been performing since I was 6 in front of thousands of people, so a cosy open mic night is not only nice, and cosy. But also a better environment. I learnt to play bass guitar from no previous knowledge at open mic nights.

But either way, my mate has finally broken through the void and can now, or I should say should be able to get up on stage with less hesitation to play something he knows how to play like a rock star at home, but now on stage.

Well done mate. Good job!!!

Moments of realisation

If you've been following for a little while you may have read about my accident I had many years ago that kinda changed my life. On my journey to recovery, I figured out it was more of a journey to discovery with a bit of rehabilitation thrown in for shits and giggles.

There are certain experiences that change the way you look at life so dramatically that the change in you is profound even to yourself and can often feel as though something happened overnight.

These, I call moments of realisation... or realization for my United States of American readers.

My first moment of realisation came at a very early age. When I was about 9 in fact. I was in school at Luther Burbank Elementary school around Monrovia (somewhere near L.A.) It was the start of my 4th year of school. I was never with the crowd.

Every Monday we were to head to the school library, find a book we liked, read it and submit a book report at the end of the week.... usually Friday.

While the other kids picked Where's Wally and Find Spot. I picked books on making rockets, batteries from lemons and things like that which got me into trouble with mum for stealing the produce from the kitchen to conduct these fascinating experiments.

After a few weeks of this, the teacher caught on that I wasn't 'reading' normal books. Her exact words were "Steve, these aren't suitable books for children."

My response was "Then why are they in our school library?"

She didn't like that. I ended up having to explain myself to the principal, who also didn't get it and I ended up being forced to read what the other students read. However, I just ignored the books completely and didn't read at all until only a few years ago, picking up my first book at the age of 29. Twenty years later.

My moment of realisation in that situation was that there are a lot of silly people that often times think they are helping, only to ruin things. Similar to how the man finds a cocoon, notices the butterfly attempting to break free and helps it only to find that the butterfly will not fly, it's wings stay crumpled and deformed. For if it were not for the 'helping' hand, the butterfly would struggle on its own, pumping the much required muscles full of blood and oxygen to break out of the cocoon and fly away.

My moment of realisation was that school wasn't going to help me.

So I drifted through primary school, survived junior high while being stabbed in the arm for being a white boy during the L.A. riots and I lived in an okay part of town. I was ready to leave everything I knew to come back to a place where things made more sense.

But school is school and it never made sense, for it was years later in high school where I was studying Physics and doing rather well at it. Exceptionally well. Yet, somehow, despite my previous year in Mathematics, I did poorly during my final years.

That is, until one day I got pulled out of Maths by the head of Mathematics. I was asked as to why I was failing Maths?

My response was honest. My previous years teacher would take the time to teach everyone in class from the basics right up to the level you were studying. At the end of the week you had no excuse for failing. And even the losers in the corner got B's or higher. The teacher was excellent. He was a teacher.

My final years Maths person was just that, a person with a maths book in their hand.... who funnily enough showed up at a near by cafe about a month ago. I didn't speak to him. However I never understood the maths he 'taught' and subsequently failed it.

Thought when the head teacher spoke to me, he said that I would have to drop Physics because I was failing maths. This defied all the logic in my body. So, I was back in the 4th grade again. Dealing with the same scenario 8 years later. I looked at the head teacher and said "So, you're dropping me out of a subject I'm succeeding in and keeping me in a subject I'm failing?"

He nodded with agreement. I nodded with his ignorance and my new moment of realisation was born.

If anything, I have only learnt to deal with issues like this and people like this.

Something I held close to me as a negative experience, has in fact become a positive skill I have that a lot of my mates ask me about, "How can you have so much patients?"

My true moment of realisation came when I realised that I can use my patients to help people. Now I just need to figure out how. And why?

I forgot my birthday

While it's officially this Tuesday, I forgot all about it and a couple of mates asked me about what I have planned for this year.

Truth is, or was I should say I forgot my birthday was this close. I had been so busy with business and concentrating on other business ventures that I wasn't even thinking of myself.

A lot has been happening, and the scary part is, another year has gone by and I feel as though I've accomplished nothing. Actually, I've done a fair amount of work. Though most of it sadly has mainly been fixing other people's problems. So from now till the end of the year I'm making it my mission to work on all my own crap.

The short version is, I'm going to slowly taper off and eventually cut off my IT support services. I'll be opening a couple of online stores that specialise in IT related areas. One of which is selling PC's with Linux pre-installed on it. This will be similar to what System76 does.

The other store will sell system upgrades. RAM, Hard drives, video cards. Also, I'm thinking of setting up an online store selling recycled products. By recycling, I mean I am going to manufacture my own products from materials that normally end up in the bin. I'll give you a hint.... packaging. Products made from recycled packaging.

There are a couple of other unique ideas I want to get off the ground. They cost time and money, more so than other ideas. Though it could pay off big. However, because it is such a unique idea, I can't talk much about it yet. Though I will share as it develops.

Watch this space. Why? Because I'm getting older, and I'm playing catchup for all that laziness in my youth.

Opera is good, but sucks

Opera is a web browser that's not too popular. However it works really well. I like it because it's different. I like it because for everyday web browsing, it's great at what it does.

That is, until your everyday web browsing includes blogging, here. I can't seem to log in. And there are many instances online when I search for the issue where others are experiencing much the same thing. People can't log into their Gmail accounts, blogger, etc. Basically Opera becomes useless. Since Google is taking over the world one technology at a time, I don't think they're in competition with Microsoft, I think they're in competition with Virgin.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Opera is great to use. However, the more I use it the more I realise how crap it is.

The other day I tried logging into my website control panel. I get an error saying the site doesn't exist. WHOA?

I open it fine in Firefox, Safari, IE even.

I tried again in Opera. No dice.

I can't blog from Opera because I have to use my gmail account to login, which fails every time. No error though. Which is worse. You can't search for nothing. It just loops back to the login screen.

Then I tried logging into my webmail for my company, which uses Zimbra. I couldn't decipher the screen.

Opera is broken. If you want to see what a broken browser looks like, try it out. You'll love all the features until you try to load a webpage you frequent and no longer can.

It's fun when you have to have a separate web browser just so you can blog and access your own websites.

Vietnamese Food Safari

Way back in Christmas 08' my wife bought me a voucher to go on a day tour of Sydney, anywhere of my choice. As long as it was with the Food Safari. A show which airs on SBS. The tours are actually called Gourmet Safaris and each tour is different. One may be a tour of Leichhardt, otherwise known as Little Italy. Some may take a Greek food tour, with... well... Greek food.

I decided since I come from an ethnic background and I have a certain amount of knowledge of good old fashioned wog food like mamma used to make, I'd try something a little different. Something I love, but have never made myself.

I did the Vienamese tour which was located around Cabramatta.

The tour starts off with some education on the background of Vietnamese culture and where the food comes from. We also delved into the origins of why this type of food and how it differs from other parts of Asia. The reason why Vietnamese food is very fresh and refreshing is because the produce was picked immediately for consuming. Since there was no refrigeration you either eat it straight off the pant or you pickled it for later. This is why most Vietnamese dishes have fresh herbs and seasoning and/or pickled veggies.

Once we were familiar with the various herbs and why they're used. We got to sample them in the form of a Vietnamese "Summer" Roll. Sort of like a spring roll but with rice paper, and it's not fried. I personally love these and could have eaten the whole plate. But there were other people in the group. About 30 of us in total.

And just to satisfy my mates, the person sitting in front of me, was a hottie with assets. I always seem to sit in front of them. We go out, I'm the first to see the panty shot, or the brilliant cleavage. I don't mean to, I just seem to pick the right seat. Saying that, I've also been to gay clubs where I've been "felt" up by interested parties. I show them my wedding ring and the effect is like garlic to a vampire.

Anyway, I digress.....

Ah yes, the tour.... So, after our rolls, we washed them down with some iced tea. Though I wish they sweetened it up a bit. We were off walking around Cabramatta. It was funny to observe the facial expression on the locals, watching a group of all us round eyes infiltrate their territory.

We walked though some dark alley ways and through small, confined arcades full of people, food and heat. Stopping at the tour guides favourite stops. He's a local, born and breed. So he knows what's good and what's bad.

We stopped at the local bakery to enjoy a serve of Vietnamese Pork Roll. Which is more like a 6 inch Subway sandwich than a spring roll. I normally have 2 of them, which is the equivalent to a 12" sub. I don't eat subway since I heard the unconfirmed rumour that there's the same chemical found in fertiliser as is in their bread. It may be true, but I'd still rather the extra freshness of a Vietnamese roll over a Subway one.

Once we were out of the tour of shops. We made it back to a local restaurant where we were seated and asked to prepare our own summer roll. Wetting the rice paper, laying it on our plate and filling it with our favourite ingredients. Roll it up, dunk it in some light dipping sauce and scoff it down. Make another one, repeat.

After that we were given a bowl full of beef stock which we used to assemble our own noodle soup with bean shoots and raw beef that cooks in the extremely hot stock sitting in the bowl.

After that, the tour was over and we could leave any time we chose. It wasn't long before I got up and said thank you to the tour guide.

There were times on the tour when I would say to myself "hurry up, this bits dragging on" but most of it was fantastic. I'll easily do another one next time someone buys me a voucher for it on my birthday or Christmas. Which reminds me, my birthday is almost here. 8 days to go and I'll be 31.... still going on to 7 though. I'll never grow up.

Just be

This has been floating around, in and out of my head for a little while now. I thought I'd talk about some that really got to me today. Being me.

See, more and more I come across people that want to be like the person next to them. What's wrong with being yourself?

Last night I was at a party where there was a woman who couldn't stop talking herself up. She's a musician and wanted you to know about it.

While there was really nothing wrong with this, her delivery... the way she told her story tuned me right out. The sad part for me was that I knew what she meant. Being a muso is hard work with no pay. Behind all the love for it I sensed she had a need for help. Sadly, I couldn't help her. But I understood in my subtle way and moved on with the conversation until my wife said "Steve plays too"

And so the torrent came. I felt bad for not listening. But I was really in no mood. A full on week with problems of my own to solve really took it out of me both mentally and physically. I had no energy to meet her enthusiasm for her meeting someone just like her.

I felt bad that I gave nothing back into the conversation, and I think she picked up on it. Though the funny part is, I've met her once before, though she didn't remember too well when I asked her if she needed help to call me. She never did. I would assume she remembered me because what she said was pretty much the same as the last time I met her.

While I am generally a giving person, even when it means I miss out or get into strife.... usually with my wife. I didn't have the patients to deal with her. Much like how I made my mind up a while back that I won't be babysitting self proclaimed musicians anymore. The ones that say everything is easy and that's simple but they can't hold a candle to Jingle Bells or Happy Birthday. And while I'm sure there are musos out there that can rock, but still can't play Bah Bah Black Sheep. The ones I'm talking about can't rock or play Insy Wincey Spider.

I have all the patients in the world though. I can sit there for hours teaching a kid one plus one. But I can't do the same with an adult. My wife reckons it's because I expect the adult to know better. I guess I expect someone who plays music for half their life to know as well. And when they don't, I get cranky.

But at the end of the day, they are trying hard to be something they are not. Why not just be. And stop trying to be like everyone else, or something that you think society wants you to be. Just be, be yourself. Be you. Be. Just be.

How can you expect anyone to accept you, if you can't accept who you are. Just be.