Kregger's Blog

Einstein: His Life and Universe

Reading Isaacson's Einstein: His Life and Universe and found a great quote:

When shown his office, he was asked what equipment he might need. "A desk or table, a chair, paper and pencils," he replied. "Oh yes, and a large wastebasket, so I can throw away all my mistakes." -- p. 426

It seems that Einstein, one of the greatest scientific minds of all time, knew that it was necessary to fail your way to success. If all of the greatest achievers accomplished what they accomplished by constantly failing until they finally succeeded, why do we teach our children that failure is bad? Why do most bosses only accept one failure on the job?

Failure is only bad if it's final. In the immortal words of Clebe McCleary,

FIDO -- Forget It and Drive On

Got a call from the office of out parish this morning: my name was chosen in the drawing for tickets to the Papal mass in Washington, DC!

I'm pumped! God continues to move in my life in many wondrous ways!

Last weekend I helped to set up run a Spring Expo showcasing many of the cool product lines we have available through our Quixtar business.

One of the services we wanted to provide to the many customers who attended the expo was the ability to place an order for the products they had just learned experienced (the hotel had a wi-fi connection of course).

But this would mean we'd have to be able to print receipts and we knew two things:

1. We would have multiple laptops from different business owners, none of which could be networked together
2. We didn't have enough room (or printers) to have one printer per laptop

Since Quixtar sends an e-mail confirmation with each order, we decided we'd just have one station with a printer. Customers who wanted a receipt on the spot would use that station.

But then I remembered having installed PrinterAnywhere at home. As the site says, this application allows you to share your printer on the Internet without a lot of fuss and muss. I already had an account, so I decided to go ahead and download it to all the laptops we were using.

My laptop, connected to my USB HP all-in-one printer, would act as the server and share the printer. The other laptops were set to use that shared printer. I used the same PrinterAnywhere account on all of the machines to make setup and security easy.

The setup worked flawlessly! I'd definitely recommend PrinterAnywhere for people who need to put together an ad-hoc network sharing printers. I can see applications for retail stores, conference registration, etc.

Monster Maggie

http://amaya651.vox.com/library/photo...

Keys are constantly popped off, several keyboards have had to be replaced. She's thwarted every effort short of this one & completely closing the lid (which isn't an option on all of ours due to the startup time and our impatience).

What's your morning beverage of choice?  Coffee, tea, juice?  Homemade or store-bought?

The best homemade coffee in the world! My wife usually sets up the automatic brew the night before, set to go off in time for her to have a cup when she gets up to drop my daughter off at her school carpool.

But still good enough to drink when I stumble downstairs an hour or so later!

Landlord: Clinton staff stiffed me on rent

http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pb...

"They left enough trash for a small army," said Bennett. "We filled two of those big black trash bags with what they left. "

Clinton...staff...stiff...what a headline

Who is ringing in the New Year with you?  Who do you wish could be with you, but isn't there?

Turns out, it's just my wife, my boys, and I.

I've been thinking about this all day...not a single invite from anyone to spend New Years with them. Not family, not friends, no one. Bummer.

Here I am 42 years old, a friendly guy with an even friendlier wife, and yet we spend most evenings (aside from business building activities) cocooning. Not by my choice.

So, my main New Year's Resolution: develop a much larger business team and, from that team, a large group of socially-minded friends!