My son tells me my blog is not valid if I do not make an entry for more than 3 months, so I guess it was not valid for a bit. Life has been busy and I have been doing most of my blogging on runningmanblog.com. I still will move my netbook review to published soon and I also plan on a few healthcare related blog posts. For now, I have changed the theme and upgraded to a new version of wordpress in preparation for blogging!
Excuse me while I get my inner geek on.
I had Red Hat system that needed to be upgrade from running Ruby 1.8.5 to Ruby 1.8.6. Unfortunately, Red Hat really lags in releasing RPM’s for many packages, and Ruby is one of the packages.
Now I have drunk the Red Hat RPM Kool-aid. IMHO using RPM’s on your system is the only sane way to manage a Red Hat based system. Compiling from source is ugly and hard to manage in the long run.
I called tech support (google.com) and found an RPM based solution to upgrade, but I ran into a few problems that I could find no solution for through “tech support” I am going to walk you through installing ruby 1.8.6 on a Red Hat system using RPM’s and solving a little issue after you have installed it.
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Since my last post about Cyberpower, I have continued to experience issues with my system. First, something was seriously wrong with my video system. After a lot of diagnoses and downloading EVGA Precision, I determined that one of my two 9800GX2 cards was running hot (WAY HOT). At idle, this card was running @ 70(c) and at load it hit 112(c)! I pulled one card and then the other to determine which one was bad. Now comes the moment of truth, a call to CyberpowerPC tech support (dum dum duuuuuum!).
At first, I sent Cyberpower an email explaining the issue and asking for help. I received no response. Once I became convinced the issue was a bad card, called and left a message, again, no call back, however the next day I received and email (addressed to Dear Mr./Mrs.). I played phone/email tag with them for almost a week(In fairness, I was out of town for two days). Finally Zakary called me and it was a simple process. They needed a credit card number for a cross-ship (They send me a new part and I return the old one in the box I received the new one in). They ship the part ground, which would really suck if it was a part I needed to get my PC running!
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After the grand unpacking of the system (see the review part 2 HERE), I was very excited to power on the rig and see how the box performed! I attached a keyboard and monitor, watched the POST screen flash (with me rubbing my hands in rapt anticipation), waiting for this beast to jump into Windows Vista! Then, suddenly a flash and a screen appeared….”No Operating System Found”! I was thinking, “You have got to be kidding me”.
It is an ASUS motherboard and I had lots of little issues with my old ASUS. I rebooted and jumped into the BIOS configuration, hmmmm RAID is turned off on the SATA controller. Since I ordered the box with RAID-0, either CyberpowerPC never configured anything, or the BIOS got messed up.
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Oh, joy is upon us, dear readers! I FINALLY received my PC from CyberpowerPC. Read Part 1 HERE
I received the PC on the revised date that Cyberpower had promised (10/15/08). I arrived home to find a single HUGE white box, which looked quite beat-up. In case anyone was unsure of the contents of the box, the big “PERSONAL COMPUTER” stamped on the side was sure to clear up any confusion!
Beat-up big white box
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I have been thinking a lot about the economy and what has been happening on the financial markets. For my few devoted readers, you may recall my post two weeks ago related to FAS 157 and why we are in a financial death spiral (READ IT HERE).
With that said, I want to go on the record early on my “superball effect” theory. The SE theory really is the inverse of the FAS 157 death spiral. Since my hypothesis on the economy is FAS 157 and “Mark to Market” is the principal cause of the current banking crisis, it stands to reason that once the financial market start to improve, the same dynamics that caused the downturn will fuel an upturn.
Downturn: Economy Slows -> Bank Assets Devalued -> Banks Write Down -> Financial Markets Slow -> Bank Assets Devalued -> Banks Write Down -> ad naseum
Upturn: Bailout -> Markets Recover Somewhat -> Bank Assets Raise in Value -> Banks Suddenly have more available funds to invest -> Market Improves -> Bank Assets Raise in Value -> Banks Suddenly have MORE available funds to invest.
Unless the incoming President really screws up the economy, I predict a complete recovery to pre-crash 2008 levels by October of 2010. Regardless of who wins, this will happen. When the encumbant President is taking credit for the dramatic turn around on the economy, remember, you heard the real reason here first!
Last night, I had dinner with several venture capitalist guys who are all a heck of a lot smarter on the financial markets situation and the proposed bailouts than I am. Here was the crux of the conversation:
1) The largest issue with the banking crisis is FAS 157 (FASB is the Financial Accounting Standards Board and FAS is Financial Accounting Standard). FASB is the organization that recommends and implements financial accounting standards for all businesses is the US and is generally driving many international accounting principles. They start with a recommendation and the allow for discussion on the recommendation, then in most cases the recommendation becomes a regulation. Once the recommendation becomes a regulation, the regulation becomes part of GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) and most companies implement immediately. More on FAS157 below.
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Whenever I describe my political views, I generally state: “I am socially liberal, financially conservative”. This means I generally vote for conservative Democrats and Liberal Republicans. I am not into extremes. One of the main reasons I tend to lean Republican is: fiscally the Republican Platform makes more sense to me. As a businessman and an individual, I have studied the pros and cons of a free market society and I believe in most cases, the free market is the best way to insure growth and prosperity for ALL citizens.
Today I am scratching my head wondering how the fiscally and socially conservative Republican Party has seemingly overnight turned into a socialistic society. Those on the Democratic side of the street claim the bailouts being proposed and executed (a good word for it) is simply cronyism, which is completely absurd. I believe the real issue is the current Republican Government (good old GWB) is attempting to stabilize the economy in a fairly transparent effort to bolster support for John McCain. First and foremost, I do not believe McCain needs that sort of help, secondly, IT IS STUPID, DESTRUCTIVE, AND EXACTLY WHAT WE DO NOT NEED!
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