I haven't had to drive from Lewisville to SMU and back this week. What a relief. Instead, I've been in Vista/Eclipse/Maven/JBoss/Spring/Hibernate hell. Vista changes files to read only. Move a file in Eclipse and suddenly errors that aren't errors but won't go away appear. Maven wipes out the file structure of WTP until I figured out which .settings files to edit. JBoss has conflicting xerces and jsf jars. Spring has sprung. It's too much. Something has to give. Hibernate is gone. Too little value added for the pain.
Yesterday I saw a message from a person on LinkedIn who was shocked he was laid off. After all, he was a CCIE. Calm down, dude. Broadcasting panic to the universe is a natural first reaction, but it needs to be squelched. People are hiring but are being inundated with applications. You may have to take less money than you're used to.
Businesses that pay as they go instead of borrowing to operate will come out of this. Check on your customers and see what they need. Ask them if they know anybody who needs it, too. People are still spending money for necessities. Make sure they consider you to be necessary.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
From no jobs to two jobs
I stopped blogging when teaching started, but I didn't stop looking for jobs, but my focus changed. I stopped looking at large corporations with big IT packages and started looking at small private businesses that needed web help. I found a company with a good product looking to upgrade to the types of MVC packages I'm familiar with and it's a good fit. So for a while I'll be teaching and working and that's pretty much it. I like having skin in the game. New product will make it because I will it to be so.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
I'm on a roll now
So this university uses Blackboard. I can't begin to imagine how many millions of dollars they've spent on installing and maintaining this system, but I know that it's built on the same IT technologies like SAP and PeopleSoft that large corporations spend millions on, too. One instructional designer I know says it's because eLearning was created by the defense department to train fighter pilots and such. Small community colleges and inner-city schools can't afford this bloatware. There are great open source packages like Joomla and Drupal that can be used to build similar sites for next to nothing. It's no wonder large corporations are collapsing under their own weight.
More on education
So, rather than college, how about training? Those guys are out of control, too. A week long class costs $3000? So I take a class and a test and get certified? No, to be certified, you have to take five classes. That's $15,000. So when these recruiters - and there are flocks of them buzzing around the same 3 jobs - say get certified, I have to laugh. I have a masters degree, I've seen the certification materials and have already used these skills in my jobs, and they expect me to pay $15,000 to get a piece of paper that says I know how to do what I already know how to do? Get real.
Education is out of control
I took a part-time teaching job while I look for full-time work and the first week, I had several students ask me if they had to buy the textbook. Que the heck? I did a bit of research and the book bundle costs $250. You can't sell back your old books if they are updating the edition the next year, so there were no used books for them to buy, and no hope of selling theirs at the end of the semester. The books date quickly, so there's no reason to hang on to them, but no way to sell them via the school bookstore. I showed one student how to buy previous editions online. I told them to list them on craigslist and I would tell the next semester's students to look there.
And that's just books. Tuition at this school - by their own numbers - is more than $43,000 a year. So to get a bachelors degree, they either need lots of scholarships, their parents go in debt or they come out deep in debt. It would be different if we taught them how to learn. Then they could learn what they need to on their own for free.
And that's just books. Tuition at this school - by their own numbers - is more than $43,000 a year. So to get a bachelors degree, they either need lots of scholarships, their parents go in debt or they come out deep in debt. It would be different if we taught them how to learn. Then they could learn what they need to on their own for free.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
545 PEOPLE
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don't approve a federal budget. The Congress does.
You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices
545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.
Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.
When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.
If the Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ .
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.
Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like 'the economy,' 'inflation,' or 'politics' that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.
They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess! What you do with this article now that you have read it is up to you, though you appear to have several choices.
1. You can send this to everyone in your address book, and hope they do something about it.
2. You can agree to vote against everyone that is currently in office, knowing that the process will take several years.
NOTE: I don't agree that there are NO good people in office. It is just that there are so many who are just there to feather their own nests. As voters, we have a chance to weed out the bad ones.
3. You can decide to run for office yourself and agree to do the job properly.
4. Lastly, you can sit back and do nothing, or re-elect the current bunch.
YOU DECIDE, BUT AT LEAST SEND IT TO EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK, MAYBE SOMEONE IN THERE WILL DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! THE 2 PARTY SYSTEM HAS TO GO !!!!!
Bill Van Steenis
Prosource executive Search
Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don't approve a federal budget. The Congress does.
You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices
545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.
Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.
When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.
If the Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ .
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.
Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like 'the economy,' 'inflation,' or 'politics' that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.
They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess! What you do with this article now that you have read it is up to you, though you appear to have several choices.
1. You can send this to everyone in your address book, and hope they do something about it.
2. You can agree to vote against everyone that is currently in office, knowing that the process will take several years.
NOTE: I don't agree that there are NO good people in office. It is just that there are so many who are just there to feather their own nests. As voters, we have a chance to weed out the bad ones.
3. You can decide to run for office yourself and agree to do the job properly.
4. Lastly, you can sit back and do nothing, or re-elect the current bunch.
YOU DECIDE, BUT AT LEAST SEND IT TO EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK, MAYBE SOMEONE IN THERE WILL DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! THE 2 PARTY SYSTEM HAS TO GO !!!!!
Bill Van Steenis
Prosource executive Search
Monday, December 1, 2008
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