It’s getting hot in here

Democratic criticism, conservative Republican opposition, quotes I’d rather not be reading right now.

“I understand speed is important, but I’m far more interested in whether or not we get this right.” — Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.

“I believe if the credit markets are not functioning, that jobs will be lost, that our credit rate will rise, more houses will be foreclosed upon, GDP will contract, that the economy will just not be able to recover in a normal, healthy way.” — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke

“Just because God created the world in seven days doesn’t mean we have to pass this bill in seven days,” said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas

“I am emphatically against it.” –Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

“You worry about taxpayers being on the hook?” he replied at one point. “Guess what — they’re already on the hook.” — U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson

“This massive bailout is not a solution. It is financial socialism and it’s un-American.” — Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky.

Quotes are from: “Bernanke: Recession certain without bailout“, By Julie Davis and Jeannine Aversa, The Associated Press (denverpost.com)

Who turned off the lights?

On my way to work I pass by a Fidelity Investments retail office. Signs promote their 401k rollover services and a nice lounge is outfitted with comfy couches, free coffee and a large flat-panel TV.

I usually glance at the TV as I walk by. Its always on CNBC and every now and then someting in the “crawl” catches my eye but mostly its just part of a familiar routine. It took me a while to notice but something had changed.

Since this past monday, the TV has been turned off.

NY Times Coverage of Fannie/Freddie Bailout

Add to Porfolio?

Well, they do say buy low, sell high… I doub’t that was the intention here. (See the bottom of the image, the story is about the U.S. Government bailout of the morgatge companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Ad Slogan of the day

“Today’s lesson: ‘Meat You Maker’. Rollover to be Educated” — Holiday Inn, “Masters of Business Accomodations” campaign.

JAVA_HOME on Mac OS X 10.5

I normally don’t mess with Java so this is likely a trivial point, I could very well be stating the most obvious of obvious things.

The documentation for Amazon’s EC2 Web Service actually had a well written explanation, but who reads? Scanning the setup instructions I saw:

• Java. — Check, I got that
• Java JRE version 1.5 — Check? [smbrown@jrcash$] java -version
• JAVA_HOME — Check? [smbrown@jrcash$] which java
• FAIL

JAVA_HOME is /Library/Java/Home it is the location where the sub folders bin/java/

What is my “JAVA_HOME“? it is “the full path of the directory that contains a sub-directory named bin which in turn contains the java“

To see your current JAVA_HOME:
[smbrown@jrcash$] echo $JAVA_HOME

To set a JAVA_HOME, insert this in your ~/.profile:
JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/Home
export JAVA_HOME;

What is a better way to confirm your real Java version JAVA_HOME on OS X?

[smbrown@jrcash$] $JAVA_HOME/bin/java -version

Thanks for taking a look you can go back to Twittering now. =)

Update (January 10, 2009): Amazon released their AWS Web Console, here’s an early tour.

Salesforce.com is not a substitute for communication

I recently received a nice, polite, relevant email from an account exec. who works for a Social Media company. No surprise there, a few weeks ago I went to a networking event this company was a sponsor. Nothing to weird right, they sponsored a great event, making it very affordable for a bunch of interesting people to get together and talk shop.

The Rub: I had already contacted this company through multiple channels, I have an account exec working with me; I’ve emailed, twittered, exchanged business cards and talked on the phone with them for 30 mins. I know I’m in their Salesforce.com database.

A Reminder: Sucessfully engaging your customers requires more than technology. Social media, customer relationship management systems are not a substitute for effective, real communication.

Communicating effectively with customers isn’t easy—software doesn’t fix that.

One of the largest players in the social media platform space today showed me again that its not about the platform, its still about people.

Comcast Sucks

And comcast continues to suck —in a big way, thank you MSM for starting to pick this up and thank you New York and Andrew Cuomo for calling out Comcast on behalf of less than half of one percent of its subscribers.

The revelation that Comcast paid nonemployees to stand in line at the hearing comes against the backdrop of a bitter public relations war between Comcast and its critics, including the public interest groups Free Press and Public Knowledge.

This is a copy of a message that I sent to the City of Boston’s Mayor’s Office of Cable Communications:

—
Hello,

As a “Valued Comcast Customer” I received notice on October 12th stating that “It has come to our attention tha t you are currently receiving channels Ch. 20 (C-SPAN), Ch. 21 (C-SPAN2), Ch. 37 (MSNBC), and Ch. 38 (CNBC) as part of your Basic Service Tier. These channels are part of our Stanard Service, and were inadvertently provided to you in error. As of November 12, 2007 these channels will only be available to customers who subscribe to Standard Service, soon to be renamed Digital Starter Service.”

I’m writing out of concern that Comcast is removing C-SPAN and C-SPAN2 from their basic service package. C-SPAN’s mission is “is to provide public access to the political process. C-SPAN receives no government funding; operations are funded by fees paid by cable and satellite affiliates who carry C-SPAN programming.” [1]

How can one align “providing public access to the political process” with restricting access to a premium product. Whether they call it “Standard” or “Starter”, it is certainly a premium product.

The cost of the basic service is $8.86/month, while the “Digital Starter Service” is $55.99/month–an increase of $47.11/month or more than 600%.

What kind of statement is it about a company’s commitment to its community if it restricts access to a valuable public service based on income? At $60/month my Comcast bill for 9 months of the year was higher than my heating and electricity bills *combined*. After watching their presentation at the Franchise Renewal Hearing on BNN TV I downgraded my service to basic cable. Now in an unsubstantiated claim of ‘error’, they are removing four news and information channels including the two that the cable industry created in a show of good will to the people and its government–federal and state.

Please bear this in mind during the contract negotiations.

Sincerely,
Sean M. Brown

[1] http://www.cspan.org/about/index.asp?code=About