Archive for September, 2009
Caught a Break! I Sold one of my SQL Server Databases
Recently, I have been advertising many aspects of my financial application on Scribd.com. Here is the link to all of my documents : SCRIBD
So, when I get the check from him I am going to be able to get the F*** out of this car and into an apartment. Screw all the companies that are not hiring, or who are hiring only foreign workers. If I can sell more of these databases, or build a web front end, none of that will matter anymore. This is not to mention my Amazon Cloud projects.
Once I get an apartment, I can start to blog about the things that I REALLY want to blog about. Namely, the demise of our once great country, and western civilization at large.
That’s all for now. Here’s hoping the guy doesn’t change his mind.
An Epiphany
Why this did not occur to me sooner is amazing. With the amount of skills that I have, I should start offering my services right here on the blog. I will list everything I can do within the limits of my situation.
I will not bother to mention my skills which would require a physical presence at a company; things like VMWare, SQL Server, Domino etc…
I will be fair with pricing but without undercutting myself. Not only could this save me, the ironic thing is that, were I to start getting a fair amount of work, I wouldn’t be beholden to these companies which aren’t hiring or interviewing anyway. I wouldn’t have to pin all my hopes on landing one of these very elusive jobs. I wouldn’t have to look for public places to shave and secret places to change into my suit. No walking into an interview with my hat in my hand and tipping my hand that I am desperate for a job!
I could probably start making enough money quickly enough to get an apartment and continue to work this way. With an apartment, a consistent broadband connection, a normal keyboard and mouse, and a large monitor, I could be twice as productive as I am right now. People can post feedback on the blog about work I have done for them. I will not edit out any comments. I would obviously make sure that everything is done to the customers complete satisfaction. I would replace the pathetic “Donate” button with a “Payment” button.
Without further adieu, the following is a list of things which I could do remotely (using Remote Desktop or Radmin)
* Troubleshoot, repair, reinstall, upgrade any MS Office application.
* Troubleshoot, repair, reinstall, upgrade ANY other Windows application.
* Remove all viruses, spyware, malware, and other junk.
* Advise you on safe browsing behavior and make you aware of the risks and the tactics used by hackers.
* Advise you on the risks of various PPC (pay per click), SEO, and “Work from Home” scams which are all over the internet nowadays, especially on social networking sites like Twitter. Shysters are trying hard to take advantage of people’s fears and concerns during the current economic climate.
* Teach you how to use applications or the O/S by using remote desktop and telephone.
* Show you how to register and begin using any number of different social networking sites.
* Optimize your system for maximum performance and suggest hardware upgrades where necessary.
* Reinstall operating system (Clean install) and all applications. Restore data. *Will require some user assistance.
* Configure a local email client such as Outlook, Outlook Express, or Lotus Notes.
* Build you a website or blog including registering the domain name, configuring DNS (if necessary), setup hosting and email accounts, and setup a local email client if desired. You can use a standard blog template or a highly customized one like mine.
* Build rich Flash based sites using high end graphics software. Examples of my work in this area are all over this blog – in the posts as well as the sidebars.
* Show you the most important things you need to do in order to generate traffic to your site. I will provide ample documentation, much of which you would ordinarily have to pay for. These techniques fall under the umbrella of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
* Show you how to sign up with Affiliate networks such as Commission Junction or ClickBank.
* Show you how to use various techniques to “anonymize” your online activities. E.g. Tor
* Install VMWare Workstation and show you how to use it in order to isolate your O/S from attacks.
* Assist you in setting up secure “off-shore” web hosting.
* Provide guidance and consultation with regard to migrating to the Amazon Cloud.
* The one caveat is that I am a Windows person. No Linux or Mac.
Autumnal Equinox
A couple of posts ago someone made a comment that he would rather be flipping burgers than living in the weeds. Not me. Over the years every so often I will catch a glimpse of an older white guy, a drifter perhaps, working the grill in the back of a McDonald’s or Burger King. I see him back there… alone and in his own world. The vibrant younger people are laughing and joking up front – their whole lives ahead of them. Rapp or Hip Hop music is blaring; certainly not something he can be too fond of. Were he to mention Led Zeppelin or The Who they would probably say “The Who”? To be such a man is one of the saddest things I can witness. I know because I was that man when I was 32 and still working in the pizza joint. I would make the pizzas, deliver them, wash the dishes. Even back then everyone seemed so much younger than me. Their lives were promising and carefree. They had no guilt or shame about working in a pizza joint, after all, they were working their way through college, while I on the other hand had finally given up on ever finishing. To be in this same situation now at the age of 45 is unthinkable.
Everything for me hinges on the car. So long as it is drivable I can avoid the ultimate crisis – that of having to take what I can carry and head off into the unknown. So far it’s still warm but soon the nights will grow colder which will necessitate turning the car on and off for some heat. The cold will also rob me of the ability to escape into the woods for an uninterrupted night’s sleep. I dread the thought of this but hold fast to some glimmer of hope that things will soon change for the better.
I have been pretty successful so far in eluding patrolling police by finding old cul-de-sacs (sans houses) to park my car in.
Anyway, I don’t have a whole lot more to say tonight. Hopefully this post wasn’t too boring.
Why Twitter Cannot Last.
I started using Twitter solely because I wanted to link my blog to it [http://twitter.com/outsourced08].
First of all the GUI is terrible and non intuitive. Tiling background images looks stupid, especially when they are cut off by the middle section. Most people don’t know how to make a .jpg or .png etc… which has separate photos in a collage, and which is sufficiently large to fill the screen. Neither do they know, nor should they have to take the time to alter a large image so that the important parts of the image don’t get cut off by the middle section. I took the time to do this with my silly image but it was a waste of 15 minutes.
Why not facilitate a discussion between people like blogs do?
Why is there such a tiny bio section? Even your web url is cutoff when you see this on the profile page.
Why does the profile page contain my tweets? I would think a “My Tweets” page would be more appropriate.
Why would I care to follow people’s 75 character snippets about inane things?
Why do I care about Hashtags?
To me, this application is a case study in crowd psychology. Somehow it has become “cool” to be on Twitter, much the way fashion trends or hairstyles start out. I will just let TwitterFeed take care of updating Twitter for me and forget about it.
And finally, the most damning thing of all: every other tweet I get is from a scammer trying to sell snake oil. Here is a screenshot of the most recent iteration of my homepage. All bullshit.
A beautiful woman who deserved more out of life – Vagabond
New Sleeping Tactic
Request for Feedback – SQL Server Database for Historical Stock Market Analysis
I have 20 years of data on 14,000 symbols with Date, OHLC, Volume, Company Name, Exchange, Sector, Industry. These encompass stocks, ETF’s and Indexes. I also have all the historical data for 150 technical indicators, 50 candlesticks, 10 Fibonacci ratios and some more stuff.
The Cloud computing stuff doesn’t hold as much promise for me it seems. Anyway, to get to my point; I have created a rather detailed document in which I lay out the structure and breadth of data which is available in this database. I also detail some queries which can be run to pull the historical data for unique technical indicators in order to get the percent increase or decrease over time. The whole point is to look deeply into the database and to find combination’s of complimentary indicators and to then look forward in time to see how a subset of stocks meeting these criteria performed. What I plan on doing is hosting the database in the Amazon Cloud and attempting to get subscribers who will pay a monthly fee to access the data with a local client such as sql server management studio or visual studio. HOWEVER, there is a person who wants to buy the whole kit and kaboodle. He wants the whole database. I told him I would have to put out feelers. I also said I would get him two prices: one WITH the technical indicators table included and one WITHOUT it. Even without it there is a vast amount of historical Candlestick, Fibonacci, Darvas Box, and other data. If anyone who knows about trading and financial applications could give me some advice on what to charge I would greatly appreciate it. Just selling a piece of it will get me out of this mess. After that I can resume my life. I am embedding the document in the body of this post. The parts about the Amazon Cloud, Web front end, and subscription based access are not really relevant to this discussion because I am talking about a one-time sale to this person. You can skip over those parts (if you are so kind as to read the doc). All references to WE in the document should read I. I have to give the impression that I am not the only one who built this whole thing. Incidentally, in the right sidebar of the blog, I have my “Scribd” badge. This is a link to all of the financial documentation I have been compiling while working on this project. There must be 20 documents there by now and they are all inexorably linked to this application. Thanks for reading (this far at least).
The Girls Guide to Homelessness – Touching story which parallels mine in many ways
Rainy Day in NJ
