brainmower

Why we ditched Hewlett Packard

I made the decision to ditch Hewlett Packard as our primary hardware vendor after being an HP advocate for 15 years. I love HP Servers, but their channel support is atrocious. As an HP reseller I have always been anti-Dell, but given recent events with HP we've committed to switching to Dell. Our goal was to obtain a Dell Premier login, thereby freeing us to order equipment on the web at significant discounts. With our Dell Premier login our margins are almost triple what we received a...

Cloud Computing and Competitive Advantages

There is a lot of buzz about Cloud Computing. Briefly (from wikipedia), Cloud computing refers to computing resources being accessed which are typically owned and operated by a third-party provider on a consolidated basis in Data Center locations. Examples of Cloud Computing include Google Apps, Apple's MobileMe and  Amazon's S3. A brief history of how we arrived at this point in computing history. A few decades ago all of the brains of a computer lived in huge mainframes. Terminals (a...

I got a Chumby

What's a Chumby?  A Chumby looks like an alarm clock, but it's really a small internet connected computer with content you select and customize online. It can stream music, provide stock quotes and even check your Inbox. Here's my virtual Chumby with the channels I use....most of the channels refresh every 30 seconds. Edit: I just realized the virtual chumby is also interactive. You can click on the videos and they will play. Very cool.

Apple’s MobileMea Culpa

Received an email today from Apple regarding MobileMe. It's a mea culpa of sorts. A Corporate "Oops" if you will.  The entire body of the email is available at the bottom of this post. The email very honestly lays out the issues Apple had with the transition to MobileMe.  The reason I'm posting it here is that Apple does the right thing.  They come clean about the issues and then give subscribers an extra month for free.  When most service providers have outages (I'm talking about you TimeW...

Top 10 signs that you have a bad bank

David Letterman's Top 10 signs you have a bad bank: 10. Teller asks, "How may I swindle you?" 9. Instead of Andrew Jackson, their $20 bills have a picture of Tito Jackson. 8. They promise they'll have your money if you come back after tonight's Keno drawing. 7. Interest paid not in money, but in Saltines. 6. ATM looks suspiciously like a Ms. Pac-Man machine. 5. Loan officer will approve your mortgage only if you let him rub you. 4. Bank robbers leave with a sack of IOU's -- ...

The Law of Rents

In a previous post titled Hardwork, Intelligence and Profits I spoke about being a homeowner during the rapid decrease of home values in 2008. When the market was near it's top I reasoned that the best reason to sell was the "Law of Rents". I created this Law, so allow me to explain.  The Law of Rents states that there can only be a delta of ~15% between mortgage payments and rents in any area (ignoring downpayments).  Any imbalance will result in shifting rental/housing markets to readjust. ...

Hardwork, Intelligence and Profits

In a post on CriticalMAS called True Job Insurance Means Shorting Your Own Company the author puts forth the interesting concept of hedging your employment risk by betting against your industry via puts. I think he's onto something.  In the dotcom days I was a part-time (and highly delusional) daytrader.  I was up 1000%.  Yes, you read that correctly, 1000% gain in just 18 months.  My extraordinary gains were due to daytrading dotcom stocks during the historic dotcom bubble.  My day job also ...

The case for AAPL

Apple has released the 3G iPhone.  The plan is for the iPhone to be available in 70 Countries within a year.  This represents a large increase in available markets for what has been the hottest phone (it's really much more) to ever hit the market. An important (and overlooked) part of the release of the new iPhone was the availabilty of new firmware for ALL iPhones.  This new firmware upgrades existing iPhones enabling the purchase of applications to be loaded on the iPhone.  This represents ...

Don’t Walk…or Think

These walk signs are on many busy intersections across San Diego. To cross the street pedestrians are supposed to push the button to change the traffic signals. The result: pedestrian controlled traffic signals causing traffic jams and wasting gas across the city. Even worse, many pedestrians have so surrendered common sense that they walk blindly into an intersection because the walk light signaled them to walk. This logic reminds of an event at the San Diego Zoo a few years ago when a...

The upside of expensive Gas

Gas is at $4.50/gallon. Hummers sit on lots while the Prius has a six month waiting list. Solar, Wind, Nuclear and Natural Gas have become hot topics. India will soon produce a $3,000 car. With 1.2 billion people the availability of a $3,000 car will intensify worldwide gas consumption and demand for oil. Add in China with it's parabolic increased consumption of all natural resources and the problem is mushrooming. The United States still consumes more resources than any other Country....