*Words of Wisdom From The Elder

In 2001, or maybe it was 2000 2002 I purchased my first Apple computer. I bought a Powerbook 15inch with the G4 867MHz processor. Some of you know the model I refer to or even have seen me with it before in the past.  Not long after I purchased the Powerbook I got the wife an iBook 12inch notebook.  She got a lot of use out of it but it started showing its age.  Honestly the machine got to be so slow I couldn’t even stand to help her with her problems.  Remember the commercial about the Slowsky’s that like DSL over Comcast because it is slower?  Well they would have loved this machine.

Which One?  Apple or PC?

For several weeks I shopped for her a new notebook.   Quicken Loans offers a nice perk whereby team members can get a $1500 computer loan that is auto-deducted from our paycheck.  Since my last computer loan was paid off last January, and the computer I built myself a few years ago is still working very well I decided to upgrade the wife’s aging notebook.  Call it a “back to school” gift before she started teaching college again for the fall semester.

My wife is a creature of habit and hates change.  She’d rather hobble along than get something new.  This is a blessing and a curse.  When I first got her the iBook she hated it.  She didn’t understand it, couldn’t use it and wanted Windows back.   Since she didn’t have a choice she eventually accepted it and moved on but it took years for her to stop saying she wanted Windows back.  Now that I am looking for her a new computer she of course is used to the Mac so wants to keep the Mac (creature of habit).  To make her happy I started looking at what Apple had to offer and was extremely disappointed in their prices compared to PCs.  I first pulled up the choices for the MacBook and here is what I saw.

So for my $1500 and some change I could get at 13inch notebook with 1GB of memory and 160GB hard drive.  I wasn’t very thrilled spending all of the money on one thing and not getting her a new scanner which she also wanted.  A day or so later I was in Circuit City for something and decided to hit the computer aisle.  Browsing around I found an HP 17inch notebook model Pavilion dv9548us with the following specs:

• 2.4Ghz
• 2GB
• 200GB – 2 x 100GB hard drives (nice, data in one, operating system in another)
• DVD / CD Burner with Lightscribe
• Finger scan authentication
• 17inch XGA display
• 512MB Video
• Built-in TV Tuner for Media Center
• HDMI outputs
• Built-in video conferencing camera (which we use while I travel)

There were other features on the notebook but you get the idea, this thing was a beast of a notebook.  It is a true desktop replacement and with a 17inch screen my wife could finally stop squinting when she used the computer.

A day or so later I got a Circuit City ad and the notebook was on sale for $1199.00.  No mail in rebates or anything, just flat bottom price.  I took her to Circuit City to look at it and she was very impressed with all the features and loved the fact she could get a new scanner, wireless keyboard and mouse and carrying case all within the budget so we bough it on site.

At the end of the day we got a much better computer for her than we could have gotten from Apple.  I’m sorry Apple I just can’t afford your high priced hardware no matter how shiny you try to make it.  It is amazing that HP can sell the same components put together at such a drastic cost. 

How The Hardware Industry Works

I don’t know how much everyone knows about tier 1 manufacturers but I used to run a hardware company (one day I’ll write a book about all the things I have done) and when it boils down to it, the tier 1 manufactures don’t really pay that much for Windows as some might think.  HP is an example of a tier 1 manufacturer as is Dell so those of you trying to calculate the cost to build this HP laptop without Windows, trust me, HP isn’t paying that much for Windows.

Mom and Pop shops or local PC builders are the ones that really don’t get a discount on Windows.  To be “legit” and not get their doors closed by selling illegal copies (yet another story I’ll tell about one day) of Windows they must buy their copies from distributors like Tech Data or Ingram Micro.  These distributors sell items based on volume so if for example you are a local PC shop trying to build computers you might pay $189 for Windows yet you are supposed to sell it to the end user for $199.  Obviously there is no money to be made in the operating system so you make it up in the hardware, service, warranties, upgrades, etc.  However, with a tier 1 manufacturer like HP that has direct connections to the suppliers like Samsung, Seagate, Microsoft, Western Digital, etc, they have a lot more weight to throw around.  Think about it.  Would you rather loose the Mom and Pop local PC store as a customer or HP?  Pretty simple eh?  What keeps the local PC builder in business is the low cost of PC parts.  The low cost in parts off sets the cost of having to pay more for Windows and still makes them competitive for the most part.  If you don’t believe me, look around at the developer machines on blogs that are built that only cost $1500 that would completely rival any Apple desktop costing $3000 or other manufacturers. 

Any tier 1 manufacturer if they want to can squish a local builder though.  It is just fact.  If you don’t believe me, go to Best Buy or Circuit City and try to build out that computer that comes with a monitor, printer and scanner for $299 after rebate.  There are some deals out there in the PC market because of the competition.  This is why Apple can put whatever ridiculous price they want on their hardware, they don’t have any competition.

This is the #1 reason Apple has no thought or care to allow OSX to run on standard PC hardware, they would be out of business because of the cut throat PC business.  Trust me I know, I left it years ago because of this fact.  For those “new Apple fans” that keep telling me to buy an Apple at every corner Apple has already tried this.  Years ago there was a company called Power Computing  that built Apple clones.  If you wanted to buy an Apple, more than likely it was going to be a Power Computing built clone.  They were in local stores, catalogs and online.  The crazy thing is they built better and cheaper computers than Apple and when Steve Jobs took over he squashed them.  Don’t believe me?  Here is a quote from Wikipedia:

Power Computing released upgraded models until 1997 with revenues reaching $400 million a year. The Mac clone business was killed after Steve Jobs returned as interim CEO of Apple in July of 1997. In September, Apple bought Power Computing for $100 million in Apple stock and shuttered the Mac cloning business.

And then to top it off with a cherry:

“Apple has to let go of this ghost and invent the future, Mr. Jobs said. Instead of expanding the share of the market that used computers based on the Macintosh system, the decision to license clones simply ate into Apple’s own sales of hardware, he said.^[3]

Why Apple doesn’t reflect the true market value of hardware costs I have no idea. I have known for years they were overcharging people and obviously some people are willing to pay for that extra price because they feel they have something other people don’t. And to that accord they would be right, they are in the top 10% of the world, or the bottom 10% depending on how you look at it which means 1 in 10 people they come in contact with doesn’t own one. I think that makes the Apple owner feel somewhat special and feel good like “hey you should buy one too”.  And believe me out of the hundred people I know, the 9% that own one tell me every day I should buy one in one comment or another.  If I get told to buy another Apple I’m going postal!

Honestly when you break the parts down at the manufacturer level, Apple is making no less than 50% margin, maybe 40% which is a ridiculous markup compared to what Dell, HP and other places are making  but hey, people are paying the Apple tax. God bless ’em, I’m too poor to afford one.

Make no mistake about it, Apple loves their markup. So much in fact they have a monopoly.  Wait, didn’t people say Microsoft had a monopoly and sue them years ago?  Hmm, maybe I should start a class action law suit demanding the freedom to run the OSX operating on any hardware I want.  If any lawyers read this contact me, I’m in.

Stop Before You Respond

For those of you Apple fan boys that are about to start going on and on about OSX and how great it is, my wife could honestly care less.  She sits down at her computer to just work, that’s it.  She doesn’t play in iPhoto, iMovie, iCalendar, i this and i that.  She doesn’t have an iLife, she has an rLife (real life).  She writes email, does word processing, uses Powerpoint and during Christmas shops online for my presents.  That’s it.  Nothing more.  Thus, stop before you even start to write, I’m not listening, but if you want to buy her iBook or my Powerbook email me.  I’ll gladly part with both of them for a very large some of money (well, they are Apple’s right?).

I hate when things break.  When I was a child growing up my Father always told me, “Boy, you can tear up an anvil”.  Well Dad, today I tore something else up.  Something that meant the world to me.  Something that made the time warp continuum disrupt.  My Rock Band bass foot pedal broke.  The weird thing is I have no idea how this happened.  I played Rock Band this morning for about 30 minutes and then slid the drum kit back out of the way.  I then took a shower and went to town and came back. 

Fast forward to a few hours ago and my wife said, “Hey, let’s play Rock Band.”.  I politely obliged her and reached for the drum kit.  As soon as I moved it I noticed the pedal was broken.  How could this be?!  I have no idea how this got broken but it did.  Here is what it looks like.

As you can tell it is completely broke at the base and obviously pointing in the wrong direction. 

The first thing I did was try to get a replacement.  After all the unit is under warranty.  After going through a whole bunch of web sites I finally found where I needed to be. Turns out that Electronic Arts does the warranty for Rock Band, not Harmonix.  Here’s the link you need to get support for Rock Band.

http://support.ea.com/cgi-bin/ea.cfg/php/enduser/rockband.php

The site requires that you have an EA account, if you don’t have one, you’ll have to create one.  There are two ways to get a replacement:  express or standard.  Express is done by shipping a replacement item which requires a credit card.  I chose this option since it is faster.  Yet another reason to own an American Express card.

After ordering my replacement I started looking for ways to keep this from happening again.  It seems there are plenty of ways to make the foot pedal stronger.  There are metal replacements and wood replacements available from either Amazon or Ebay.   For example this one is called the Pedal Metal – Billet. 

Basically it is an aluminum plate that replaces the plastic one.  It definitely should last longer.  I plan on waiting until I get the new pedal in to see if it is made any better before deciding to upgrade it.  In the mean time, I am back to playing Guitar until it comes in.

Today marks a momentus occasion for the Internet.  Today a brand new web site launched that has been in the making for several years.  The name:  QUIZZLE.

About Quizzle.Com

Quizzle is a unique site powered by Quicken Loans that allows users to manage their biggest asset, their home.  There are tons of features built into Quizzle to help users manage their budgets, access their finance as well as view their free credit report twice a year.  That’s right, for free!  Quizzle pays the cost for you as apart of the service. 

What does Quizzle really do?  Wanna know your credit score?  Quizzle it.  Wanna keep track of your budget?  Quizzle it.  Wanna get an estimate on how much your home is worth right now for free!?  Quizzle it.  Wanna know if you are in the right mortgage with interest rates falling or rising?  Quizzle it.  Not sure if you have enough money in your rainy day fund?  Quizzle it. 

Quizzle brings all of this together and more into one central location to help you better keep track of your finances.  Best of all it is free!  You just have to sign up.  Here is a sample of what your Quizzle might look like.

How Quizzle Works

Budgets and Your Free Credit Report

Managing your expenses and budget is a synch with Quizzle.  Once you sign up on the site, Quizzle uses your credit report to assist in calculating your budget.  Don’t worry about your credit being pulled.  Quizzle does not impact your credit score.  It isn’t against the rules to pull your own credit so don’t worry!

Since Quizzle already knows your mortgage payment and other debts collected from your credit report, your budget information is automatically updated.  Just fill in the rest of your expenses like utilities and you have a complete picture of where you stand.  The end result is no more guessing and no more spending countless hours at your local bank trying to figure out what you should do with your home equity to plan for your kids college.  The best part is, every six months Quizzle emails you when you qualify for an updated credit report.  Simply visit the web site to get your free credit report and watch Quizzle go to work.

What’s Your Home Worth?

How much equity do you have in your home right now?  How much is your home worth after purchasing it a few years ago?  With Quizzle this information is at your finger tips.  Using Quizzle’s automated home value appraiser you can get an automated home value amount without the need to call an appraiser.  Best of all, by calculating your debt, equity, and other factors, Quizzle automatically tells you the top recommendations based on these factors for refinancing, purchasing a new home, or using your home equity line to pay off debt.

Countless Other Features

There are countless other features that Quizzle provides, the best thing you can do is just see it for yourself.

Quizzle Blog

Did you know Quizzle has a blog?  To keep up to date with Quizzle’s new features, announcements, best practices for managing your finances and so on, don’t forget to visit the Quizzle Blog and add it to your daily RSS Feed Reader of choice.  Ann-Marie will keep you up-to-date on what is happening with interest rates, the federal reserve, how to get out of debt and how to be a millionaire by the time you are 65.  She’s way smarter than me when it comes to this stuff so be sure to make it apart of your daily blog reading.

What Are You Waiting For?

Quizzle is going to change the way you look at your finances.  Head to http://www.quizzle.com to get started and sign up.  Go ahead, QUIZZLE!!!!!!!

I love seeing people I know step up and get involved with the community.  Especially those that I’ve tried to push over the edge of getting more involved (speaking, blogging, lunch-in-learns or whatever).  Community can be a lot of things to a lot of people but since this is a blog I wanted to highlight some folks that I think you should keep your eye on and add to your RSS readers.  Of course if you haven’t added this site to your RSS Reader you’ve missed out on some gems so get it added (end of self promotion).  Anyway, I’ve got enough people to now warrant mentioning them publicly.  These are people that have just joined the community, or stepped up their game, or someone that is finally finding their voice.  I think they are doing a great job and effort alone folks is +20 geek points.  I expect great things from them so this is an official “turning up of the pressure.”   Here we go in no particular order (really this is no order of personal preference so being first could be last).

Brian Sullivan

Brian and I go way back.  Actually farther back than I care to mention but I will anyway because it is a funny story.  About oh, 10 years ago and some change I was a Band Director at Cope Middle School in Bossier City, LA.  Yes for those that don’t know I have a Music degree.  That should fill in the gaps for those of you that know how hooked on Rock Band and Guitar Hero I am.  Anyway, Brian was a trumpet player in my top band at Cope Middle School.  Brian was one of those kids that always did the right thing, never cut up, paid attention, worked hard and one that you knew would make it in life because he came from a good family.  I left as Band Director at Cope in June of 1997 and moved to Michigan to pursue my career in IT. 

Fast forward 10 years and I was in Memphis, TN speaking at the Memphis Day of .Net last November where I was speaking on guidance around how to organize Visual Studio solutions.  My laptop totally bombed on me and it was to date the worst presentation I’ve given.  That’s beside the point.  A guy walked up afterwards and asked me a question which I promptly answered.  While he was speaking something was strange.  After I answered his question I said, “Don’t I know you, there is something familiar about you?”. He then said, “Do you have a brother that is a Band Director?”.  I said no but I was a Band Director.  He said “In Louisiana?”.  I replied, “Yep, Cope Middle School”.  Bam, it was Brian. Of course you saw that coming but wow, I didn’t ever think I’d run into a student from Cope in Memphis, TN. 

At any rate after the code camp Brian started a blog and he’s been keeping up with it.  He’s in a unique situation where they are migrating systems to .Net so he is running into some interesting problems.  Although Brian is starting out his blogging career help him out and add him to your RSS feed, he could use the encouragement and I know he’d appreciate it.  Brian, it was great to reconnect after all these years, keep it up!  Oh, and for the record I didn’t add you on here just because I’m on your blog roll but I do feel honored to be listed along side those names.

Blog For Brian:  http://www.sullivansoftdev.com/blog/ 

John Chapman

I can’t remember when I first heard about John.  I think it was from a co-worker.  John has joined in a lot of conversations and posts on this blog always adding top notch feedback.  I had the pleasure of finally meeting John at Codemash in January and we even formed a band with Jeff Blankenburg to take second place in the Rock Band give-a-way.  For those that are in the know, John is carrying card member of the Alt.Net crowd.  Recently he has embarked on a rather intriguing and very much needed series whereby he is building a Sudoku game from scratching using Behavior Driven Design and his favorite tools from the Alt.Net space like Castle. 

This is a very needed series to help document the thought process of how one embraces BDD and the alternative tools to .Net.  The reason this is needed is because in order for developers to really get it, they need an example, and not a coding example or an API but a sit down session with someone who is trying to mentor them and that is the approach John is taking.  As an educator at heart, I really like his approach.  This is important.  Currently John is up to the 5th, I mean 4th installment (he started at 0).  I don’t know how many he has in store for us but if he builds everything out from start to finish it will be a staple example for the community to follow for a long time.

Blog for John:  http://jaychapman.blogspot.com/ 

Dave Newman

Dave is an ex team member that was apart of our team at Quicken Loans.  Dave moved to New York to join his future fiance.  Love will make you do strange things, even leave the second best place to work for in America.  Dave is a wealth of Biztalk knowledge and just an all around solid engineer.  We had him dig deep into LINQ right before he left and he made LINQ do some really crazy mad cool stuff.  At any rate he’s labeled his blog fittingly enough ‘.Net Nomad’ since he has moved around a lot in the past few years. 

You never know what Dave will post about but he’s starting to find his voice on his blog and put out some good information.  Currently he’s infatuated with network packet sniffing and has been trying to build a managed packet sniffer application of sorts.  Hopefully Dave is getting involved with the community in the New York area.  Dave is also a good speaker and just needs to be pushed over the edge a bit more to get out there and speak at a few local events.  If you are in the NY area, make Dave come out and speak on something.  Sorry Dave, I had to do it.  Oh, I wouldn’t do my team mates justice if I didn’t mention Dave’s infatuation with his cat.  Don’t ask.

Blog for Dave:  http://geekswithblogs.net/dotnetnomad/Default.aspx

Michael Letterle

Speaking of Alt.Net earlier, Michael is another card carrying member of said group.  I met Michael last year at Codemash 2007 where I think he took at least 1,000 pictures.  Since then I’ve been watching Michael weave his way through the Internet and even followed along as he got a new job this past year.  If you want to know what Michael is doing just add him to your Twitter account where you will not miss a beat (literally we know what the boy has for breakfast and lunch, he’s a Twitter machine). 

As of recent Michael took on a mission to tackle IronRuby which is the implementation of Ruby in .Net.  Similar to John’s take on things Michael is walking his readers through his trial and tribulations from the start and is keeping up on what is happening in the IronRuby space.  It is good to see him sink his teeth into something and put his vast amount of tinkering and knowledge to good use.  Ok Michael, the pressure is on, turn it up!

Blog for Michael:  http://michaeldotnet.blogspot.com/ 

Who’s Next?

There are some of you that didn’t make the list I am sad to say because well, some of you don’t have a blog yet.  Namely:

Jthorndy

and

Mikebob

It is time to take the plunge.  If you are out there and standing on the edge and haven’t taken the plunge to get involved with the community do it.  Don’t run but walk to the nearest free blog web site or better yet buy a domain and then host it for as little as $4.95 a month so you have complete control over your site. 

Also remember that blogging is only one thing you can do.  Find the nearest .Net User Group and start to get involved by first and foremost showing up to meetings and then finding local conferences and events to attend.  The more you do the more you get back.  It is just a fact of life.

March 18th is the day of the Heroes Welcomed Launch event in Detroit.  What better way to end a day of festivities around the launch of the new bits than to have a Geek Dinner with a bunch of fellow geeks?  I mentioned this a week or so ago on Twitter and got a good response so as they say, it’s on like a chicken bone!  The plans are now finalized so here are the details.

When

Date: March 18th
Time:  6:00 PM

Where

Greektown, Detroit  

PizzaPapalis®

553 Monroe Street
Detroit, MI   48226
Phone: 313-961-8020

PizzaPapalis is located a few blocks from the Renaissance Center where the launch event is being held.  Those that will park at the RenCen for the launch event can use the People Mover to go from the RenCen to PizzaPapalis.  I think the cost to ride the People Mover is $.50 and it will stop running at midnight (for those that decide to stay downtown). 

Directions from Renaissance Center to PizzaPapalis.

RULES (Updated 3.14.2008)

The rules for large groups at PizzaPapalis is we cannot do individual tabs for food.  Obviously that would take too long anyway for a large group.  So be sure you bring CASH to this event, not credit cards.  For those doing alcohol at the event, you will either pay cash as you order or you can start a tab with a credit card.  These are not my rules but those of PizzaPapalis. 

Who Can Attend?

The short answer is anyone that considers themselves a technologist or a geek.  We also aren’t discriminating based on location either so if you are from Mississippi, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio or nearby states in driving distance of Detroit feel free to join us.

What is a Geek Dinner?

Although there is no official definition a geek dinner is a time for technologist, enthusiasts, developers, architects and others in the community to gather and talk about technology.  That’s it, plain and simple.  It doesn’t mean you are part of a sacred group or cult, it just means you were hungry on a Tuesday night, needed some place to eat and there were a bunch of people that like technology like yourself eating at this one place so you decided to join them.

How Do I RSVP?

Easy.  Just add a comment to this blog entry or send an email using the contact link on the site stating your intentions of attending and I’ll start to gather a head count from that.  Once I get your RSVP I’ll update the site to keep a list of people attending.  Be sure to provide your blog link if you have one so I can link to you.  Also if your plans for one reason or another change and you can’t make it, do let me know.  It is important to organize an accurate head count to help the facility plan accordingly.

Who Pays For Dinner?

Unless we find a sponsor to pickup dinner for everyone you’ll be responsible for your own meal.  You have to eat supper anyway so you might as well eat it with a bunch of geeks!  See the rules for how this works, with this large of a group we cannot do individual tabs.

How Many People Can Attend?

Currently we have room for up to 80 people. 

Can I Attend The Launch Event?

Absolutely but you have to register.  Just follow the link to the site and register.  The event is free.  There are 18 talks scheduled revolving around Visual Studio 2008 (which I’m giving one on), SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008.

Who Is Going To Be There?

The following people have officially responded they would be there.

Jeff McWherter
Richard Perry
Michael Eaton
Brad Lloyd (AKA AtomicInternet)
Jay Wren
Steven Harman (blog)
Michael Letterle
James Bender
Jeff Blankenburg
Chris Woodruff
Brian Burge
Bill Portman
Jonathon Thorndycraft
Tim O’Hara
Chris Risner
Matt Kelley (student WCC)
Scott Creighton
Randy Pagels
John Chapman
Michael Cojocari
Michael Palinski
Dennis Burton
Jay Harris
Joe O’Brien
Jeremy (meaton’s friend)
David Truxall
John Hopkins
Dustin Campbell
Mike Bobiney
Mike Moore
Ralph Menzel
Vivek Joshi
Alfred Green
David Redding
Joe Wirtley
Jason Follas
Jamie Wright
Vijay Jagdale
Scott Zischerk
Joe Kunk
Rich Hamilton
Dan Hibbits
Eric Maino (Microsoft product team)
Amanda Laucher
Corey Haines
Nate Hoellein
Praveen Pereira
Mike Moore
Brian Sherwin