Welcome to Smuggle Me

I’m in a Business Intelligence course this semester and the teacher has required two textbooks. The first is Delivering Business Intelligence with Microsoft SQL Server 2005. Looks like this book we’ll just be going through and doing exercises. Here you can buy it on Amazon if you’re interested:

The other book is called Business Intelligence: A Managerial Approach. I guess this is suppose to be the theoretical book on implementing Business Intelligence. I was going to post the link to amazon, but it turns out they don’t offer it. In fact, I can’t find it anywhere on the net. What kind of crappy book is that? If I find it later, then I’ll post a link. Ok, so the teacher is responsible for my pain. I found it on Amazon and the correct ISBN is 978-0132347617 Looks like some entertaining reading:

I just got the following error when I tried to login to my online bank account:

Error 500–Internal Server Error
From RFC 2068 Hypertext Transfer Protocol — HTTP/1.1:
10.5.1 500 Internal Server Error

The server encountered an unexpected condition which prevented it from fulfilling the request.

If I’m visiting my friend’s webpage, that page is fine. If I’m visiting some other website on the internet, no big deal. In fact, Google Cache probably has the page anyway and so I can just view it there. The one place I don’t like to see that error message is my online bank. So, pull it together and get a more robust website.

This is one of the most hilarious videos I’ve seen. I would never have expected to find a video of John McCain endorsing Mitt Romney after the things he’s sad about Mitt Romney during the campaign. I guess it’s things like this that make my wife not want to have anything to do with politics.

Time is running out and I’ve been polishing up my application for YouBeTheVC. I’m really nervous, because I really want to win this competition and I know there have been a lot of entrants. I guess in 4 days I’ll leave it in God’s hands that everything will work out for the best. I certainly will know I have done my part. Either way, it’s a very exciting time in my life. I just wish that I would have been able to put together a stronger team. I’m still working on it and I have a couple of possibilities, but it doesn’t look like they’ll work out before the submissions our due. We’ll see what they think.

The President and prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, President Gordon B. Hinckley, died today at 7 PM at the age of 97. It’s a sad day for members of the LDS church who haven’t known another prophet for a long time (President Hinckley entered office in 1995).

President Hinckley was an inspiration for so many and did so much to help the LDS church grow from obscurity. His loss will be felt by many members. Even today in church someone prayed that the prophet wouldn’t suffer from the lonely longings for his wife. While not the answer expected, I’m sure that the prophet is incredibly happy to be reunited with his sweet wife.

I can’t imagine what President Thomas S. Monson is going through tonight. Not only is he going to be the next prophet, but he also just lost a close friend that he worked with almost every day for the past 40? years. I can’t speak for anyone else, but ever since I was a kid I had hoped that Thomas S. Monson would be given the opportunity to be the prophet. President Monson will be an amazing prophet and I can’t wait to hear him speak in General Conference in April.

My prayers and best wishes to the Hinckley family and Monson family.

I’m always interested in remote desktop products. Especially in regards to supporting desktops for my end users. Today I came across a beta citrix product called GoToAssist. I love Citrix’s products, and I love that this is free during the beta run, but I hate the idea that after beta it will cost to use. I think I’m going to try it out with some of my end users. I’ll let you know how it goes. However, I really want someone to come out with a product like this that is free forever.

When I was reading my twitter feed today I found Jules and blm03 talking about using TwitterFeed to publish when you do new blog posts. I think this might be a good idea. Definitely better to be able to automate the posting of your blog feed. I’m thinking that I might try it. I just wonder how many people it will annoy on twitter. Considering the number of posts I’m doing right now I don’t think I should be too worried.

The iShoes were definitely the coolest thing I saw at CES. It is basically motorized “shoes” that you strap your feet into. It has a motor on one side that propels you along. The thing that got me the most was how fast he was actually able to go. I asked about brakes, but there aren’t really any brakes. The motor just acts as its own brake essentially. I do think that they need to do a fair amount of work to make them lighter, prettier and not so bulky. They aren’t the most attractive things and I think they’re still a little too large to put in say a back pack when you get where you’re going. Pretty cool stuff.

Here’s a video to see them in action:

I must admit that lately I’ve been without too much to say. I think it might be because I’ve been focused on starting my own business. I’ve been evaluating a ton of potential options and it’s been quite the challenge knowing which option will be best. There are a lot of unknowns and I’ve been doing my best to find out as much information as possible. I’ve been really glad that Mark Cuban has dug into some of his best posts from the past on his blog. It really gave me a lot of food for thought when considering the idea of starting my own business.

One thing that Mark has said multiple times is that one of his greatest advantages it that he is going to work harder and be more prepared than his competition. I think that’s what I’ve been trying to do now. I’ve been reading and researching and talking to people in order to find out as much information as possible so that I can make the best decisions possible.

Finding out information isn’t as easy as it sounds. People don’t just show you their cards when you’re playing poker. You have to try and find ways to have people show you their hands. Of course, this leads to a lot of ambiguity in your decision making, because you are making decisions with limited information. However, this is what makes business so interesting to me. There are a million factors that goes into anything and you have to learn to adapt quickly or die.

I’ve often said that I’d love to be a waiter at a restaurant some time, because it’s one job where your pay is commensurate with the quality of work you perform. I think starting your own business can be the same. If you are killer at business, then you’re going to be rewarded. I definitely have confidence in my abilities and believe that I have that killer business skill. I guess time will tell.