The positive robot

This post is dedicated to the people I have met that are positively positive, all the time, no exceptions. Once you meet a person or two like this, you will see what I mean. The whole world can be falling down around them, and they will see the positive aspect of that situation.

The first positive robot I met is a man named Tom Schott. He is a master wood worker and a disc (frisbee) evangelist. In his woodworking, he has built beautiful furniture out of recycled redwood, taken from barns and railroad trestles, He has put on countless world class tournaments and is in the PDGA hall of fame for his contributions to the sport. Every time I talk to Tom, I get a great positive upwelling in my spirit and feel better.

The next positive robot I want to talk about is a man I have met only a few times, but my son Buck is very much involved with. It is Ken Lolla, Buck's soccer coach at the University of Louisville, in Kentucky. The Louisville Cardinals had just run the table and posted an undefeated regular season (2010) when coach was asked if it was tougher to win the last few games, His response was along the lines of this "It is tough when you are ranked and you are undefeated in that you will probably get everyone's best. For us, that is such a great advantage for the post season because we know then that we will be tested every single game and getting everyone's best. So it is hard, but it is because it is hard that we will be better off".

These people look at air pollution and think - wow all this stuff in the air will make for more beautiful sunsets. They look at a pile of garbage and see all the recyclable things that are in there, available for free.

PDC 2010

I just came from attending a web-simulcast at the Microsoft Portland office (in Tigard really). The video was streamed from the Microsoft HQ in Redmond WA. No, I was not given a windows 7 mobile phone like the people who attended in person.

Here are the major take-aways and what they talked about:

• Windows phone 7 (WP7) - Lots of hype on this by the MS folks. Due to be released in mid-November in the US. It is based on Silverlight, which was exiting until they also said in the same breath that it is also based on IE 7. I guess that they needed a baseline and did not follow the technology as it developed. See this URL for more details: http://www.mobilebusinessbriefing.com/apps/article/microsoft-details-wp7-development-at-pdc-2010
• HTML 5 - This seems to be the next big push, despite it not having being finalized yet by the W3C http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1863215/microsoft-claims-html5
• Azure - Microsoft's entry into the cloud http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/Microsoft-Puts-Developer-Focus-on-the-Cloud-at-PDC-103713/
• Silverlight - this was conspicuous by its absence. Some thought that this technology is not being supported as much as it was in the past and might already be passed its time.

A side comment here about a useful web-tool: http://http://www.instapaper.com/ which allows you to have a "read me later" bookmark.

IT support for the elderly

As the self-appointed IT support team for my 88 year old father, I find some software tools better to use than others. At present, I am using Skype, Go2meeting, and the backup cell phone. I set him up with avast free-home edition and set him up to get automatic software updates from Microsoft as they become available.

Skype is nice to use as it serves up a video image with the help of a USB video camera, which is working so far for both of us. I use a headset with earphones and mike, and my dad's speakers work, but the microphone on his side seems to cut out every so often and when it does, I use the cell phone as a backup to talk.

Go2meeting is a nice little application, as it allows me to see his screen, but for some reason he cannot see the control panel so I cannot take over his mouse and keyboard (yet). I tried to take a snapshot of the panel on my side so that I could show him what to look for, but the G2M control panel does not capture in a screen shot. I did find a picture on the go2meeting web site under the user guides, but my dad still cannot find it. Oh well.

My dad just bought a Windows 7 dual core 64 bit dell desktop, which is a nice machine. I visited him in Washington DC (I am in Oregon) and set it up when I was there and it has been working for the last 3 months. He is using AOL for email and browsing for the most part and seems to be keeping in touch with his friends for the most part. I tried loading AOL desktop v10 but it could not send email so I loaded version 9.5 and it is working better.

Any other recommendations are welcome, so please share.