I just finished reading "Our Crowd": The Great Jewish Families of New York. It was a well told story of coming to America, working hard, and ending up very successful. There was plenty of hardship along the way but these families were strong, intelligent and hard working. Important historical points are nicely woven into the story line and many times these families played key roles from both a political and financial prospective. This book was a great read that definitely didn't lull you to sleep like a politically correct history text. (I found the last couple chapters rather sluggish and boring, but overall it was solid.)
I have had my iPod for awhile and love it. It was the first Apple product I had ever purchased. My tech savvy friends (Bryce and John) were the culprits since they showed me how well their iPods worked and I had to purchase one. Now my less geeky friends are all buying iPods and are equally impressed with them.
Today, Apple came out with earnings (that easily beat expectations) with a significant portion of them due to solid sales of the iPod. Right now the stock is up 9.65% to $71.78. I keep asking myself why I didn't invest in Apple back when I purchased my iPod in December of 2003. Back then, Apple was trading at ~$20 and I realized that the iPod was a stellar product. If I had invested in Apple I would be sitting on a 358.9% capital gain.
Next time, when all my geeky friends start buying a killer application or item, I am going to buy stock in the company behind it. Hmmm, I wonder what Jeremy Z. has purchased lately?
I have found Google Groups to be one of the best tools around for finding source code examples and documentation. However, recently I have found the results returned from searching Google Groups to be skewed and inaccurate. For example, I was looking for an example of how to capture command line arguments from VB.NET. None of the results returned from searching the Google Group home page were helpful.
I tried all sorts of search strings to no avail and wasted lots of time. I was still operating under the assumption that my trusty search tool was working properly. I even began contemplating posting a question to microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.vb newsgroup. However, I kept thinking someone else must have already posted about how to capture command line arguments from VB.NET. I continued tweaking my search string assuming it didn't quite line up with what I was trying to find.
Finally, I had enough and decided to post a question to the relevant newsgroup (microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.vb). Using proper etiquette I searched this group before posting just to double check that I wasn't missing something. After all I didn't want to get flamed for asking a question that had been already answered. I was surprised to see that the results were helpful and contained just the information I needed.
Therefore, be cautious using the Google Group home page, it appears that its results are hopelessly skewed. Instead, drill into the relevant newsgroups and search them. Hopefully, Google will correct this issue. I noticed that Google Groups is currently in beta and this is the first time a Google Beta has disappointed me.
I have been thinking about making various new years resolutions. However, upon reading some wise words from Peter F. Drucker I decided to focus on the question "What do I want to be remembered for?". Carpe Diem!
"When I was 13, I had an inspiring teacher of religion who one day went right through the class of boys asking each one, "What do you want to be remembered for?" None of us, of course, could give an answer. So, he chucked and said, "I didn't expect you to be able to answer it. But if you still can't answer it by the time you're 50, you will have wasted your life." - Peter F. Drucker