Blog description

Private thoughts for public consumption.
Sent from my BlackBerry

Vectorvest Oops

I get lots of spam mail from Vectorvest touting their product (and in all fairness I've seen good things about them elsewhere on the web). However its ironic that in one of the ads touting their product, they would have made this little mistake. Clearly marketing could have used a liittittle bit more detail orientation on this pic.

Coloured? Really?

My 3 year old air conditioner broke the other day (apparently it ran out of refrigerant, so much for Keeprite quality) so I called in the dealer rep. Pretty decent guy, told me all kinds of useful info about my furnace, ac unit, and the whole concept of how an ac unit works. Being an info junkie, I soaked it all up and mentally decided this was my go to guy for any future heating / cooling issues. So I was kind of taken aback when he suggested that my last name (Wright) was kind of unusual for a "coloured" guy.
Now he'd struck me as a pretty smart guy until he made that comment. So here are the things that bothered me about it.
1. Who the fuck uses the term "coloured" any more?
2. Aren't all people "coloured" (As in that kid's Christian hymn, "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red & yellow black & white, all the colours in his sight etc...").
3. The use of the word coloured clearly shows the limited social interaction this dude has with any black people, so did I make an error in judgement by being friendlier with him than befitted what was strictly a business transaction?
Anyhow I explained that most Caribbean blacks are the descendants of slaves, who carried the names of their former English / Spanish / French slaveowners.
Adding insult to injury, buddy then went on to say that he knew a lot about Caribbean history, from the (get this) 5 Caribbean cruises that he's taken! At this point I mentally wrote off all the points that this guy had accrued.
I wonder what percentage of the North American population is this clueless?

Tethering a Blackberry Curve to Rogers

I spent more of my day than I really want to think about working on tethering my Curve to Roger's yesterday. Using their Wireless Connection Manager software was a complete failure, as it caused two Curve's running two different versions of the BB OS to crash and reboot. Not fun. I finally gave up and called Roger's, who gave me the instructions to connect. Almost perfect, except for one crucial typo which messed me up until I stumbled on this Crackberry forum post. I had to combine the Crackberry instructions with the Roger's instructions to get connected. Minor, but important differences. Here are the steps I followed (and which are allowing me to type this blog entry now). I copied them almost verbatum from kcladygemini's Crackberry post, with the minor customizations that allowed me to connect to Rogers. Hope they work for you!

Configuration: Curve 8310, running v4.5.0.81, with Desktop Manager v5.0.0.11
Query the modem, using the modems properties:
1 Click Start, Settings, Control Panel.
2 Double-click on Phone and modem options.
3 Click on the Modems tab.
4 Left-click on the modem installed above. (Standard Modem or Standard Modem over Bluetooth)
5 Click Properties.
6 Click the Diagnostics tab.
7 Click Query Modem.
8 If dialog shows in the empty box, the modem is responding, then continue with the below steps. Otherwise contact tech support.
9 Click the Advanced tab.
Enter the initialization command:
Rogers Users: +cgdcont=1,"IP","internet.com"

Create dial-up networking :
1 From your computer, click Start, Settings, Control Panel, then Network Connections.
2 Click Create a new connection, then Next.
3 Select Connect to Internet.
4 Select Set up my connection manually.
5 Select Connect using a dial-up modem.
6 Select the Standard Modem, then Next.
7 Enter Roger's as the ISP Name (or whatever else you want to use).
8 Enter *99# as the Phone number.
9 Click Next.
10 Enter wapuser as the User name and wap as the Password.
11 Leave the check boxes as whatever they are defaulted to.
12 Click Finish.
13 In the Connect window, click Properties.
14 In the Properties window, verify that Modem - Standard Modem appears beneath the Connect using heading, then click Configure.
15 In the Connect window, select Save this user name and password for the following users.
16 Select the appropriate option.
17 Confirm that the BlackBerry Desktop Manager is running.
*IMPORTANT: BlackBerry Desktop Manager must be running, or error 692 will appear during the dial up attempt.
18 Open the web browser and navigate to any website to test the connection.

If the laptop/PC connects but Internet Explorer does not, follow these steps:

1 From Internet Explorer, click Tools, then Internet Options....
2 Click the Connections tab.
3 From Dial-up and Virtual Private Network settings, select T-Mobile.
4 Click Set Default.
5 Select Dial whenever a network connection is not present.
6 Click OK.
7 Click OK again.

Good luck! Credit to kcladygemini for the instructions.

Buying into Wind Power

I've been thinking about investing directly in alternative energy for some time, but have been a bit tentative until I saw some signs of tangible demand. Well that demand seems to be there, based on all the media attention to alternative energy sources. Here's an interesting article from Moneyshow which talks about investment opportunities in wind power.

Psalm 65

The big green bank stopped showing me love, and so I wrapped up my contract there about a month ago. Now for the average old school Jamaican living abroad, being unemployed is one of the horrifying things imaginable. So I thought it was really cute when I told my aunt Rose that I wasn't working at the moment.

Well didn't you know it, my old auntie go into crisis mode. She immediately set about putting together a prayer plan for me, assuring me that she'd pray for me every day. She then made me commit to repeating the following phrase daily - "God is my source of supply, and I am prosperous" (Psalm 65). Sadly, I have not been very diligent with repeating that phrase. Perhaps posting it hear will help to keep it top of mind.

She also made me call this toll free number - 800-669-7729 for Silent Unity so they could pray with me. Not being the most devout of Christians, I have to say I felt a bit awkward doing this, and had I had the foresight to Google the term first, I would have found the website and made my prayer request that way. I'm sure Aunt Rose would have been content with me doing an online prayer rather than a phone-based one.

Anyhow, I've now learnt and experienced something new, there really is such a thing as a prayer line. Who would have thought...

Toronto's Public Libraries - the crappiest Libraries in the GTA

Living in Brampton comes with much stigma. Judging by public perception, I've got to be East Indian or Black. Furthermore I've apparently got to dodge a hail of bullets in order to get home.

So it stands to reason that Toronto should be in much better shape, right? And what better place to judge the quality of a city than its libraries.

So I had occasion to find myself in one of the Tdot's magnificent institutions of the written word the other day, and Oh My Gosh! What a shithole! Check out Pic 1 and Pic 2 of the descent into the bowels of the library on a much needed potty break and tell me I'm wrong.

So if we were to judge a city by its libraries, then Brampton's kicking Toronto's ass, at least in the upkeep / hygiene department.

Am I the balding, middle-aged microsoft guy?

I've had my curve for about a year, and its been a great ride. My biggest complaints? Lack of power, and no scroll wheel.

Now the power issue is easily dealt with by upgrading to the new Curve or Bold.

However, the scroll wheel? Unless I want to pick up a 5 year old 8700 on Craigslist and resign myself to living in the dark ages with no media capabilities and the storage ability of a Palm Vx, I'm s.o.l.

Apparently, although there are some who like to kick it old school with the scroll wheel, the roaring majority are 'ballers. So does this make me the middle aged microsoft guy from those Mac commercials? (vs. the cool apple dude). I really hope not!

What's wrong with being laid back?

I had lunch with my chubby friend today. Well, he's actually not really chubby anymore, but I'm so used to calling him that now, that he's kind of stuck with the name. So anyhow, we're talking about our various career choices, when Chubby (who's in sales) says to me - "you're too laid back to be in sales"... Me? Laid back? After giving him a verbal beat down, I conclude that maybe Chubby sees one side of me, but what do my co workers think?

I decide to use a lifeline and ask a colleague. So as my frame of reference, I use the SVP of my team as a parallel, and go ask my pal Ang for feedback. Here's our convo:

Me: Ang, would you describe P as laid back?
Ang (1 minute later)......: outside of work yes
Me: Would you describe me as laid back?
Ang (1 Second later): no
Me: Holy Crap! No hesitation there! Ouch.
Ang (words of wisdom): Its not an insult.. 1st off you are in a contract position.. so I wouldnt be laid back either. No one hires the laid back person.
Me: I didn't take it as an insult.
Ang: high strung would be an insult.
Me: Oh.
Ang: you arent high strung...

So what's the big deal anyhow? What's wrong with being laid back? Well let's see. For starters, dictionary.com defines laid back as "relaxed or unhurried:... 2.free from stress; easygoing; carefree:...". I don't think any leader (especially in an efficiency focused Financial Services institution) wants a senior manager who would be tagged with the label "laid back". In fact, the Impact Factory states that if you appear too laid back, you're unlikely to get a job you're interviewing for as it gives the interviewer the impression that you just don't care. The same logic applies to managing perception on the job.

So what's the conclusion? Well, be yourself, definitely - but be aware of the image you project, and make sure it aligns with who you are and what you're all about.

New to Facebook

In spite of my (not too) recent post - I did an about face (no pun intended) and joined Facebook. The way I saw it was - my background is in the online world, both in terms of eBusiness and online marketing. But my knowledge of social media tools such as Facebook is more limited. I am on LinkedIn, and I use that fairly extensively, but the professional flavour necessary for LinkedIn is pretty different from the much more social flavour of Facebook.

I find it remarkable how much time people spend keeping their Facebook profiles up to date. In effect though, its a pretty powerful tool for mapping out your life story. I'm sure it'll enrich (or even become!) many an autobiography.

For me, I'll continue to be the observer, and let the other Facebookers live that much more out loud.