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| Watch your back! |
| 09.28.04 (12:03 pm) [edit] |
Over the weekend I got out of the house and attended 3 events.The first was a trip on a zodiac boat which is essentually a large rubber raft with gasoline engines. We skirted the shore to the north of Kona and saw a couple pods of dolphin. Most of the participants snorkled and saw dolphin close up! Although I took SPF 45 lotion, it appears there are some spots on my back that I missed. Since Saturday I have been enjoying the cooling and soothing effects of Solarcaine Burn Relief with Aloe :) After the ride we attended a block party in Kona. There were street vendors with food and event memorabilia, all alongside Aloha Festival events. Then it was off to a night of dance and singing fundraiser. I got home after midnight, only to find that I had no power. Of course, the first thing that went through my mind was "did I pay that bill?", it turns out, someone had run off the road and into a power pole at the top of my street. Since I passed that pole 10 minutes earlier, it appears they hit it just a minute or so after I passed. In the morning when the power came back on, I had a quandry. How can you tell if sour cream went bad? I mean, it is ALREADY sour... :D I stopped by the postoffice on Sunday and found that my new camera had arrived. I wish I had ordered it a day earlier and I could have taken it with me on the zodiac trip. I could have posted pictures of what I was looking at as I was getting that sunburn... I had an Ebay auction running as a way to get people to visit my web store. The winner of the auction turns out to live about 10 miles from where I used to work and live in Georgia. What a small world! My High Tech Rant... In my latest issue of InfoWorld (a magazine for computer nerds) they discussed a small memory chip that plugs into a USB port on a computer. This new module remembers all of your passwords for websites for you. Thus, for those people who have a different password on each website, this thing keeps them all handy for you. Once you plug it into a computer and enter your master password, all of your password sites are available to you. I hope that at this point, you are NOT thinking of getting one... Here is why. Imagine you have an ATM card and while entering your PIN, someone oversees the PIN. They come up behind you and grab the card, access the ATM machine and take all of your money. NOW, imagine that scenerio happening with EVERY business you use... Amazon, your checking accounts, your savings accounts, your American Express, VISA and Mastercard accounts, your Ebay and PayPal accounts, etc. Imagine now that they can access all of your email accounts. Imagine they can CHANGE anything they want, transfer money, etc. NOT a pleasant thought. Granted, most people have one or two passwords that they use all of the time. Years ago I wrote a trade publication article about security and passwords. I got letetrs back because it seems I touched a nerve. Many people use personal information for passwords. Their PIN may be their birthdate or anniversary or the last 4 digits of their phone number or social security number. Their passwords may include a spouses, child or pets name. Some people hide their passwords in their desks at work, others post them easily accessable on the side of their screen. I used to hide my house key in a ziploc bag, buried under dirt under a bush in the backyard of my house. Of course it was inconvient. That was the idea. I didn't want someone casually looking under the welcome mat, behind the mailbox on the house or under a fake rock on the stoop. Yes, I COULD have just placed an electronic lock on the door, but didn't. The ziploc bag was cheaper :D When prompted to create a password, think twice about how secure it is. When prompted for your "Mothers Maiden Name", why do you enter the correct information? This prompt is for YOU to enter a correct response for the question, not to correctly identify your family. You could just as easily (and more securely) create a response to "Mothers Maiden Name" as "FRED". No one scanning your Ancestry.Com entry would be able to accurately figure out that name. There are websites to look up your personal info. One site tells you most anyones birthday (it comes from private records like mortgages). Some states post your real estate transactions (with signatures) on the internet as part of public record. Some states post diagrams of the rooms of your house on the internet for all to see. This one comes from Tax Records. When you fill out a check, rarely does the bank verify your signature with the card you signed when you created the account. In many cases, the signature is there for YOU to verify that you did or did not sign the check in case of fraud. While I don't advocate signing your name differently on checks or giving false information when the correct information is required, you still need to question WHY people ask for certain personal data and for what purpose. If a website asks for my birthdate, why? If it is a bank or mortgage company, or Social Security or IRS, or my job, then yes, they probably need it to be correct. If the request is from a website that I want to buy something from, are they asking just to ensure that I am over the age of 18 and able to enter into a contract? If so, then why can't I use my "Internet Age", a date that does not actually belong to me, but parallels my age? If my birthdate was 2-1-1980, I could have an internet date of 1-2-1980. So, while you start thinking about how secure you REALLY are, consider how INSECURE it is to store all of your personal information and passwords under ONE password and then to carry that all on you in one place. Watch your back! |
| Just the facts, Ma'am |
| 09.17.04 (1:20 pm) [edit] |
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It is amazing how some people cannot get with technology. Oh, I know some people go kicking and fighting into the future, but sometimes you have to wonder. I get a call about Monday from my mortgage company that they need to have me sign a document. I ask how they are sending it. They reply by DHL Overnight. I ask if this is a time critical item and they say "not really". Then I tell them that DHL probably cannot deliver to my house because it is 4-wheel drive down a 1400' driveway. I tell them I can drive intop Kona if they want to fax it to me. They say no, they will overnight it. Because I know this will be a problem, I suggest they put two extra things on the label. First, that they can deliver this to my mailbox at the street. Secondly, put my home and cell numbers of the label so I can be called if they cannot deliver it. When the thing doesn't show up the next day or the day after, I call the mortgage company and they check on the package. Then Friday at noon I get a call from somewhere on the mainland that my package could not be deliveded yesterday. Do I have a better address? I sigh and am irritated. They tell me the soonest I can get this package is MONDAY (a week after the overnight package was sent). They now have an alternate address where I will have to drive 40 miles round trip to get the package. It will be delivered about 5 feet from that FAX machine I suggested almost a week ago. Now I am NOT a big proponent of FAX either, but it would have been cheaper that the overnight package and how many people have to be involved in that delivery anyway? We are talking planes and trucks and gasoline and so on. How would *I* have done it? Well, as I say, I hate FAXes as they are arcane, but some people swear by them. I would have EMAILED the document to me. I would then print out the form, sign it and drop it in the mail. Even with the Postal Service involved, the Mortgage company would have received this single seet of paper within 1 day! Email is a FAX without the FAX machine. Had I not needed to send them an original signature, I could have scanned the printed form and emailed it back to them, thus not costing either of us a cent in postage or delivery costs. Years ago I worked in a large office and there were a few deaf people. They used TTY (teletype-like keyboards and a modem) to communicate with other people around the world. At that time, electronic email was quite new. Nowadays, if they have computers, deaf people can email and instant message people quickly, easily and cost-effectively. Computers are doing away with many (but not all) of the TTY units out there because some people are not yet on the internet. (An update) 20 minutes after I started this, DHL called from Kona and said that if I want, I can come to the airport to get my package. The airport is about 10 files round trip past that FAX machine, but going there would save me a weekend of waiting. Perhaps to save time, since I'll be at the airport anyway, I can sign the form and hand-carry it back to Honolulu. At least it will free up the FAX machines of the world for more important documents... --- I guess I could have wrapped this blog up in a nicer packaging, maybe put a bow on it, done some spell-checking, whatever; however, looks like I have to drive into town...... |
| Eyes Crossed |
| 09.14.04 (11:56 pm) [edit] |
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The "I"s are dotted and the T"'s are crossed. The deed is done. Yesterday I received a call from the Title Company asking if I was going to send them a check towards my closing. I replied that they ALREADY had one from me and had acknowledged to me they had it a week ago. It seems they had it over in Honolulu and not here on island. I received a call from my Mortgage Company today saying they needed just one last paper signed, but my loan was approved and all was fine. I kinda KNEW the loan was approved since last week I signed the "final loan documents" and of course, signed the check just mentioned. Then just after noon today my Real Estate Agent called and asked me if I heard "the news". I paused and then cautiously asked "which news?" I hated to sound stupid, but if I spoke the words before someone officially told me, I could jinx things. Kraig then told me that... [i][u][b]"They registered the deed. The farm is yours! Congratulations!"[/b][/u] [/i] :D :D :D This has been a year and a half (at least) in the works and I am very happy. NOW I can start all of my projects. If the loan had not gone through, I would have had to buy the place outright and would not have had funds to do a lot of work on the farm. NOW I DO! NOW the real work begins. Just tonight I am finishing up the newsletter and putting a link to it on my site. I'll offer a discount for the rest of the month in celebration that I own the farm now. I also want to send out a link to the newsletter, but have to be careful not to spam people. I'll send it out to people who have recently sent me email about my various websites and I will probably not sent it to too many people at a time. That should keep it under the RADAR of spam detectors. The newsletter gives them the details of the discount. By the way, near my farm there are two other properties for sale. The first is a farm north of me by two properties. It has 1 nice house and 2 coffee shacks. They also have some coffee and other agriculture on the land and is in better shape and a bit better than my property. It was listed for $300,000 and had a contract for full price and a cash deal the first day! That sale unfortunately did not go through because the buyer could not sell his house during the 2 month contract period. The property is now listed at $390,000 or so... A few lots to the south of my property I see a house up for sale for about $250,000. It too is a bit nicer than this one and further along than my farm. Then again, I paid nothing close to that price for this place. Even with a lot of fixing up, this property I just bought is worth way more than I paid. Time will prove this to be true. |
| The Letter |
| 09.10.04 (10:38 pm) [edit] |
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"Give me a ticket for an aeroplane, ain't got time to take a fast train, lonely days are gone, I'm ah goin home, my baby, she wrote me a letter...." If you have been following this Blog, then you know that I live on this coffee farm here in Hawaii. I found a neat painting and asked the author if I could use it for my coffee label. I'm still waiting for him to give me an address so I can pay him for its use (but that is another story). The graphic is quite appropriate for me as I live on the Big Island of Hawaii (the actual island CALLED Hawaii, and the island with the active volcano). Hawaiians will tell you that the Goddess Pele created the islands and dwells on this island currently. Since the islands have existed for well over thousands of years, should be noted. The painting and this my coffee is named "Pele's Passion". So, I decide to get a domain name to refer t othe coffee, said domain name is http://PelesPassion.Com. I register it and await my ability to point it to my existing site at http://ItsKona.Com As mentioned in a previous Blog, I then received a Certified letter at the Post Office. It looks like some lawyers sent it, and they paid over $4.00 to send it, so it must be official. Scammers would only MAKE it look official. So I open the letter and start reading. I will summerize it with my comments in parentheses: Attention: Regarding your domain name PELESPASSION.COM 1. We represent Glory Establishment (which to me sounds like some kind of sex shop, but I digress), owners of the well-known PELE trademark/service mark, the nickname of the internationally famous soccer star, Edson Arantes do Nascimento. (how they get PELE out of that, I have no idea! Comptons Encyclopedia implies that he just made up the PELE part). 2. We recently became aware of your registration of a domain name and wish to determine your intention. NOTE: They are afraid I might be using Pele [the soccer gods name] in vain I guess. It seems that when I registered the name, my domain registration company automatically created a WELCOME page and placed some links on it with links to sites which do soccer stuff I guess. Anyway, I guess they think I MAY tie a website and/or product to their client. Would the REAL Pele please stand up? They asked that I either write or call them to discuss this. LIKE I CARE! Nope, not even gonna pick up the phone on this one. Let the lawayers keep sending letters and wasting their clients money. It appears to me that these lawyers have no idea how the internet works because had they done a search combining the few keywords they listed in my letter, they would have seen that I have no interesat in some aging soccer star who nicknamed himself after a better-known Hawaiian Goddess. Once my abilty to repoint the domain name was enabled, I pointed it where it was designed to go, that is my own coffee website. I can understand why someone might want to create a trade name, but don't go taking a common name and try to use it as your own private property. Don't assume that everyone that uses that name is infringing on your trademark. Don't be too sure that the REAL PELE, the Goddess of the volcano, will not cause you problems. She got back at me for "borrowing" one small piece of her work. I took a small lavarock from her island and had to bring it back. I am STILL doing pennance! I can only IMAGINE what she has in store for Edson since he took her NAME!!! |
| A sad note |
| 09.10.04 (6:39 pm) [edit] |
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This morning I awoke to find a message telling me that a friend has passed away. A number of weeks ago I heard that George was sick and with trepidation, I called him and he said it was true, pancreatic cancer. As many know, it is almost always fatal. One website relates: [i]Each year about 30,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with adenocarcinoma of the pancreas; more than 60,000 in Europe. Most of these will have passed away by the end of the first year. [/i] [i]The median survival for untreated advanced cancer of the pancreas is about 3 ½ months; with good treatment this increases to about six months.[/i] I have now had a relative and two frinds die from this cancer. George came to work at Hewlett Packard as a System Manager. As a member of our team, we would keep computer mainframes and servers running, update software and troubleshoot problems. George was more comfortable with the servers and I more so with the mainframes. There are two things that he could never quite figure out. The first was "Mark, how can you be so cheap? You drive all over town to save a few dollars only to go gamble it away at a casino". Well, I tried to explain to him that because I was able to save money elsewhere is why I could afford to take these trips to the casinos. By the way, many times I won! The other thing George couldn't understand (well, maybe he undertstood it, but never believed it) was that I would soon leave Hewlett Packard and move to Hawaii. The decision to leave HP was more an offer of theirs to pay me to leave. I gladly accepted their generous offer. As readers of my blog know, I left HP and visited back and forth between Georgia and Hawaii many times and only a year ago did I finally move here for good. My last conversation with George a few weeks ago was somewaht sad. Both of us knew he was not long for this life and I again told him that I wished he could travel here and see why I love the islands so much. We both knew that would never happen. At the end of our talk he said he was glad that I finally got here (although he was sure I'd never make it). He also said, "I'm glad that I were able to follow your dream. It's a shame most people never do!" [i]Somewhere over the rainbow Way up high There's a land that I heard of Once in a lullaby Somewhere over the rainbow Skies are blue And the dreams that you dare to dream Really do come true [/i] Amen George. Aloha and A hui ho (goodbye until we meet again). |
| WHEW! |
| 09.09.04 (11:25 pm) [edit] |
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This past week has been quite full of problems. Weeks ago I was working on my most important computer and loaded some software which would help me send out business newsletters in HTML format. That software appears to have caused me lots of problems. I kept having rpoblems with certain webistes not displaying correctly in Internet Explorer; seemingly changing the character sets on the webpages to some European font. I reset most of the settings and finally took the extreme step of uninstalling IE from the machine. Microsoft does not make it easy, because many people will strip the box of it and use something better. Their system will then be quite a bit more secure too. To fully remove IE youm have to actually play around int he registry (an internal Windows database). That still did not fix the problem. I then tried a few Windows updates and somehow got the Service Pack 2 partially installed. I tried everything I could to keep that from installing, but it did anyway. From that point on, my most important system would not boot! I tried my favorite trick of attempting to install a new copy of Windows in a seperate directory to fix the old copy, but still could not get the system to boot. After 3 days of pulling my hair out, I discovered the hangs were caused by a seperate disk drive the box has which is connected to a special card. That card's driver was not compatable. AFter some playing around, I finally got the system fixed and recovered 99% of what I needed from the system. THEN, I attempted to install a module in my shopping cart which would automate Ebay sales from my online store, then allow the buyer to come back to my store to check out (and possibly add to his items) while allowing me to keep him as a store customer. The install would have been quick, had I been running an unaltered store. Actually, few people have unaltered stores. They do as I do, add multiple modules which allow different shipping methods, new reporting modules, and so on. Anyway, after spending all day putting this thing in, I find that the part of the module I really wanted, must be performed manually OR I have to subscribe to this guys service and pay a monthly fee to have it fill in the buyers info automatically! I was NOT amused. I had to read through 37 pages of support info to find that out! Now I can't easily remove the thing without spending hours more. :evil: As the commercial goes, I do have some GOOD NEWS! Last week I called the Mortgage Company and poked them again on my loan. They finally sent the "FINAL LOAN DOCUMENTS" to the Title Company. Although the Title Company had not yet determined how much I needed to supply at "closing" I got a good estimate and wired that from my Credit Union t othe Title Company. I went to the Title Company office and signed the loan forms. Now that they have the check from me, they are just waiting on a fax of one form from the seller. They say the next step is for them to record the deed with the county and that should happen about Tuesday. If that is the case, then this journey has taken me over 18 months. In contrast, my sister sold her house and closed on it in something like 2 weeks! My "closing" was not as most people experience, as most everything was signed by mail and at the loan signing, it was me and the Title Company representative. I have been here on the farm clearing some brush, keeping the house lived in and doing minor repairs. I have also not had to pay rent or mortgage. It is a nice arrangement and although I'll be sorry to see it stop, I honestly DO want to start paying a mortgage. I could ahve bought the place for cash, but then I would have used all of my spare cash and been left with a property I owned and no money for food or utilities. Now I will have a 10 year mortgage and spare cash to start some real renovations. I need to replace the water line t othe house and get an official agriculture water meter installed. I need to strip out and rebuild the kitchen, two bathrooms, and replace two outside stairs. I want to start building pulping and drying decks, a storeage area for green coffee (it has to be airconditioned) and I need to start dozing the property to make lots of room for coffee. All the while, I'll be marketing, selling, packing and shipping coffee. I'll also be sowing plants from seeds to be planted a year from now when the land is clear. Growing coffee seedlings from seeds will cut the cost of the plants by 2/3's! The other day I went to the Post Office and had two surprises. The first was some computer parts I ordered which came sooner than expected. The other surprise was a registered letter from a legal firm. WAIT UNTIL YOU HEAR WHO THIS IS FROM!!!!! Details in a future blog :-) |
| Facing the Music and old friends |
| 09.07.04 (3:22 am) [edit] |
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What a weekend! I was privileged to be able to attend the Slack Key concerts at the Waikaloa Hilton this past weekend on the Big Island! I was given a ticket on Saturday night for the Brothers Cazimero and enjoyed the show. Then, I was offered a room next door at the Mariott for a few days and was able to see the Slack Key concert Sunday also. That second show was the best deal I have had to pay for. The event was about 6 hours of continuous music and featured over 12 groups! All for the low cost of $10! Playing were Del Beazley and Dwight Kanae, Brittni Paive (she has a CD [an inside joke]), Walter Keale, Chris Yeaton, Randy Lorenzo, John Keawe, Kohala, Mauka Makai, Brother Noland, Dennis and David Kamakahi, Ledward Kaapana and others! Years ago, back in Atlanta, I met Led and Dennis and David Kamakai and concerts. Then my friends and I sat next to another friend of mine whom we call Kona Bob from the Konaweb.com site. Bob also played last night to a very appreciative audience. Bob has the weirdest instrument whicj he invented, called the Kona Walkingstick. No one can figure out how he gets that thing to play so deep a tone! See what I mean at http://konaweb.com/stick In the past year I've been here, I've been pretty busy and had few chances to really get out. This weekend was the exception. I also had a chance to swim a bit in the Pacific and have my first sunburn from the area! I really needed to get out and relax, because for the past week I have been fighting with Microsoft products (and throwing a few things across the room)! I had been hoping to get an Ebay auction online by now, but this software thing has taken all my time. I did add a few items to the store though. I am offering some new burlap coffee bags and some items called a "Gift Assortment". I don't want to ship gift [i]baskets[/i] because I think I can save customers a few dollers by letting them find cheaper baskets locally and also not pay shipping on them. Future "assortments" will include different combinations of coffee, perhaps some postcards and keychains and perhaps some other items of interest. I want t ocreate a gift assortment that might be ordered for an office worker, a retiree, a wedding gift, etc. I have lots of ideas and will start posting them at http://ItsKona.Com as I create and price them. My Mom and Sister made it through two hurricanes in Florida in as many weeks. Now they hear there is a third one heading their way.... They are NOT looking forward to that one either! |
| Roots and threads |
| 09.01.04 (2:27 am) [edit] |
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I've been out clearing brush from the property recently in preparation of taking over the previous owner. It appears the transfer may occur soon. I can only hope, as it has been a long wait. The property still has a lot of macadamia nut trees and my original idea was to cut down most to make room for about 5 acres of coffee. However, I may leave most trees to shelter the yound coffee plants until they get established. I'll defer to the experts on coffee farm preparation to guide me. People think that because I moved so far away from the East Coast, I would not keep up with what happens back there. I listen to my favorite talk show in Atlanta (WSB's Clark Howard Show) via internet radio. I talk constantly with friends back there (using my internet phone and free calls) and even read the online papers to see what is happening. In fact, just today, I spoke with relatives and friends in Florida and they are yet again looking at the weather to see if they will get another hurricane. I think they are tider of these! In researching that, I also noticed there was a heavy storm in Richmond Virginia with bad flooding. This reminded me of another storm that hit the area quite a while back. Hurricane Camille that did the damage. I still have a book about the storm and the destruction. While browsing the current Richmond flooding, I also browsed over to my old High School which was nearby to see if there was anything about damage. There was not. The school where I spent most of my High School years was Fork Union (http://forkunion.com), one of the few military academies left in the country. Located in the middle of nowhere (between Charlottesville and Richmond Virginia) the school was the perfect place for kids to grow up. I could write books about life there, but my story would be just one of many. Speaking of stories, one involves students there and sports. I was never coordinated enough to participate and I regret not bing more involved in sports (I stuck with the Radio Club and some back stage theater work). However, many people excelled insports and have very heartwarming stories. If you are into sports, I might pass along a couple of articles you may enjoy. Read this one at http://www.forkunion.com/News... and then read the Eddie George story. Unruly kids should understand that [b]sometimes[/b] when parents threaten to send their kids to military school, they follow through! :D Eddie's story mentions numerous buildings on camput and except for many of the very new ones, I have been in every one and know many of them better than houses I have lived in. Over the years, the school has molded youth and pointed them in the right direction. I hope it will continue to do that for quite some time. I first attended the school at age 12. Although I have to admit I was a bit homesick at first; except for a few summers, I had never really been away from home much. This would all change for the next 6 years. Over the next few years I would learn to travel on my own, I met and lived with people from other cultures and countries. I learned to take orders and direction from others, and some of those people were younger than I. I also learned to give orders and direction to others. When I was there we gave orders with a bit more hollering (authority) than they do today, but I really feel the discipline of a school such as this helps both socially and in academics. For those who have not seem cadets in action, you should visit a military school if you get the chance. It is amazing to see hundreds of students who politely welcome visitors and are happy to tell you about what they do and how they are doing. The discipline shows and it can feel odd for a visitor to realize he is being addressed as Sir or Ma'am. It is also interesting to see them drill. At a military school EVERY student has a rifle! Granted, they don't fire, but cadets are usually given lessons. I always loved the location of the school, deep in the middle of Virgina's country near the Blue Ridge mountains. There were pastures all around and it was quite relaxing. So, here I sit in my new "home", near the mountains, with farmland and pastures around and the kids are well behaved. Not quite so far away as people think! |