Freeware

I have to admit. I LOVE free things. Although I'll admit that I'm not desperate enough to slam on the breaks when I see a cardboard sign on top of a rusty shopping cart along the road that reads, "Free", I still like free. Particuarly in the world of computer software. If you live in a Microsoft Windows environment, you can pretty much live on free software. Everything from web-browsers, office productivity tools, and the like can be found somewhere on the internet.

These past couple of days, my job had required me to research a free software program that would enable our business to convert our Microsoft Word document into a formatted help file for distributing a piece of software to some of our clients (forgive my run-on sentence). I knew that here had to be a way to do it. I had faith that we could do it for free. I'll admit that at one point I gave up hope. But then after persistence, I found not only a solution, but a superior piece of software for the problem. The cost? "0" dollars. All freeware. Its great.

Speaking of freeware, I also am in the process of collecting useful freeware for myself. I just don't collect anything. It has to be of high quality. Take for instance right now, I'm using a little program called, "w.bloggar" which enables me to write blog entries to several different blog sites, with tons of formatting features and settings. This software is convenient and best of all....that's right...its free. :-)

Why I'm giving up on Mozilla Products

I have finally had enough. While it was fun to try something different than Internet Explorer for so long, it seems that the fun has run out. Recently, Microsoft has announced that it is working on IE 7 which should be out in beta form within a few months. To tell you the truth, if it has any of the features that Firefox did, as well as better security, then I'm all for it.

Reason 1:

I recently had an experience where I was doing my taxes online. I got so far into the interview process where I was asked a question, but had no options to choose from. No links to click or buttons to press. So in my confusion, I calmly saved my work and decided to go after it later. Only to find the same error. Then it hit me. I was using firefox. A quick switch to IE revealed the buttons and links that I needed and I was done in no time with no confusion. There was no warning on the site to indicate that only IE would work for it. Should I blame the site? Yes. Should I also blame Firefox? Why not? If it wants to compete, it better make things convenient. That experience was the last inconvenience that I choose to live with. As soon as the new IE7 comes out, I'm all over it.

Reason 2:

Mozilla thunderbolt had me hooked initially. Then I discovered its crappy issues. First, its buggy. It doesn't always check mail according to the settings that you set. It had multiple problems sending mail and connecting the the server. And just recently it stopped working altogether in connecting to my work'sE-mail E-mail server. No reason. No settings had been changed. It just stopped. Other than the really cool address book layout that it has, I'm pretty much through with it. I'd rather use something that I ran rely on its stability and such. I've switched to Eudora, which provides a free(lite), ad-based, and paid version of its E-mail program. It gets the job done.

In conclusion, I'd like to say that going against Microsoft merely for the idea of having a choice means nothing when your choices are mediocre at best. Open source software has a major flaw in that, because there is no real support department dealing with customer complaints, the product doesn't necessarily need to be fixed and updated in a hurry to appease the consumer. We all know that Microsoft and other companies work hard on keeping the bugs out of their software for reasons of customer loyalty, etc. I'd rather put up with the overwhelming flow and ebbing tide of Microsoft and others and have a product that works, than have a product that works when it wants to, written by a group of people with no pressure to fix things.

Expectations

One of my favorite tibits of wisdom that I have learned over the years is that "The measure of one's assumptions is exactly porportional to the potential of one's disappointments". In other words, the more that you expect, the more you need to be prepared for disappointment.

For instance: Let's say that I expect my boss to take me out to lunch, and he doesn't. Should I be mad at my boss? Well, it depends. Did he make plans with me? If so, then I have built an expectation upon his promise. What if he didn't make plans, but I felt that I've worked so hard, that I deserved it, and he should do it. Now I've not only created an expectation, but made an assumption on someone's behavior. We all know that assumptions are also dangerous and foolish to do, since they rely on un-founded predictions. But let's get back to expectations. Is it wrong to have expecations? Not necessarily. If I buy a 5 dollar item and give the clerk a 10, I expect to get 5 dollars back. That's a realistic and rational expecation (its also a law in most cases). But what if I give him a tip, and expect him to decline it and give me it back and he doesn't. Then I've again become the fool and made an assumption. So the problem here is to define expectations versus assumptions. Here are my own definitions:

Expectations: Anticipated results predicated by facts or laws within a reasonable context.
ex. "I expect to be arrested if I go punch that police officer in the face."

Assumptions: Foolish anticipation of results predicated by subjective ideas and limited or no facts.
ex. "I assumed that my mom would love this handful of worms I found under that brick."


Why am I even writing all of this? Perhaps as a reminder to myself. Happiness with others lies in the area of less assumptions and more communciation.

Random Thoughts for Today

I wonder about marketing hype.

VOIP? It sounds nice, but the catch is sometimes hidden. What? I need to have power to my DSL or cable modem to use the service? What? I need to work out a backup phone alternative in case this happens? No thanks.

Online music services. What? So I pay you money each month so that I can listen to my favorite music? I can take it anywhere I want? Hmmm, they've had something like that for quite a while now...its called a Radio. So I can own the music, but I can't make copies, and it expires after a month? Didn't you say it was "My" Music?

Good Music-Good Lyrics

A lot of people like music for different reasons. Some people, like myself, enjoy many aspects of music. One area that rarely gets respect with music are the lyrics. A lot of today's most popular music fails to even communicate much more than basic themes of love, sex, or depression of some sort. Even the christian music scene is plagued with a lot of overdone themes. Sure, praise is important, and so is salvation, but how about some other issues? One band in particular who has knocked me off of my feet in this area is Switchfoot. They are band that has entered the charts on both secular and christian music channels. Their latest album "Beautiful Letdown" really puts out some hard hitting lyrics that really ask the big questions. One popular song, "Meant to live" certainly drives home the idea that there is more to what the average person thinks about our lives and mankind. My favorite song thus far, is one called, "This is your life". This song does nothing less than smacks you in the face about your current condition. I'll post the lyrics below, and if you have the opportunity to hear this song. Let me know what you think.

yesterday is a wrinkle on your forehead
yesterday is a promise that you've broken
don't close your eyes, don't close your eyes
this is your life and today is all you've got now
yeah, and today is all you'll ever have
don't close your eyes
don't close your eyes

this is your life, are you who you want to be
this is your life, are you who you want to be
this is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
when the world was younger and you had everything to lose

yesterday is a kid in the corner
yesterday is dead and over

this is your life, are you who you want to be
this is your life, are you who you want to be
this is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
when the world was younger and you had everything to lose

don't close your eyes
don't close your eyes
don't close your eyes
don't close your eyes

this is your life are you who you want to be
this is your life are you who you want to be

this is your life, are you who you want to be
this is your life, are you who you want to be
this is your life, is it everything you dreamed it would be
when the world was younger and you had everything to lose

and you had everything to lose