Archive for October, 2006

Auction Items for the Valour-IT Fund Drive

October 31st, 2006 by xformed

From John at OPFor (the USAF Team Leader)

Richard S. Lowry, author of “Marines in the Garden of Eden” and the “Gulf War Chronicles” was generous enough to donate two personalized copies of each book to Valour-IT.

There’s a deal! Good books and a chance to fund the drive!

eBay links to the auctions:

“Marines in the Garden of Eden”

“Gulf War Chronicles”

Spread the word, move the cash!

Thanks, John!

Update 7 Nov 2006: More up to date auction info here.

Category: Charities, Military, Supporting the Troops, Valour-IT | 3 Comments »

Valour-IT: Hey, John! See the FUTURE Here!

October 31st, 2006 by xformed

mindless drones

Category: Charities, Military, Supporting the Troops, Technology, Valour-IT | Comments Off on Valour-IT: Hey, John! See the FUTURE Here!

jfkerry is a Weasel

October 31st, 2006 by xformed

“I apoligize to no one for my remarks.”

That one will go down in history. I’m sure all the mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, brothers siters, grnadmothers (Nancy Pelosi?), and grandfathers will accept this….

Category: Political | 2 Comments »

Valour-IT: Counter-battery – Team Army, I got Yours Right Here!

October 31st, 2006 by xformed

Team Army in a Bog

Category: Charities, History, Humor, Military, Open Trackbacks, Supporting the Troops, Valour-IT | 2 Comments »

2006 Veteran’s Day Valour-IT Fund Drive – Part II

October 30th, 2006 by xformed

Part I, the kick off, is here!

We’re off! Thanks to those who have joined the fray on Day 1.

I’m going to create a universal email list of the Navy bloggers and email it out, along with Secret/No Other Service hints to get the funds flowing.

In case you didn’t see on the program blog, as of today, the 650th (WOW!) laptop for Valour-IT was delivered! That’s a lot of roll up your sleeves, engage your brain and open your wallet support from many people to make that happen.

Math, for those who are busy pounding the virtual pavement for $$$: To attain the goal of $45K in 13 days, we need to pull in $3461.54/day.

Between all of our friends, families, friends who have kids who made you buy Girl Scout cookies, band candy bars, or Boy Scout Jamboree tickets, this is a perfect time to pay them a visit, or at least ring them up on the phone/email.

At the moment, the laptops are in the medical facility libraries, but….with luck, one day they will be in the hands of the people who need them for the rest of their lives.

Think up how to get in contact with local radio stations and see if they’ll post the info on the program on their websites and include it in some of their programming.

Email to follow. If you don’t see one in your inbox, email me and I’ll catch you up (providing you’re not a plant from one of the Army sites, looking for good ideas).

Begin by checking in with your closest contacts today/tonight. Plan for the broader reach soon.

Category: Charities, Military, Supporting the Troops, Technology | 3 Comments »

2006 Veteran’s Day Valour-IT Fund Drive – Part I

October 30th, 2006 by xformed

Sign up your blog to support Valour-IT HERE!


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Valour-IT – Laptops for Wounded Troops with Voice Software

It’s almost he month in which we celebrate those who have put on a uniform of the Armed Forces of the United States and defended our country.

This year, as last year at this time, the MilBlogging community “virtually” gathered to care for their own, in particular, those who have suffered wounds in the War on Terror that have left them unable to communicate in the normal manner so many of they, and us have become accustomed to: Via typing their thoughts and greetings into a computer.

Technology has an answer for this type of disability and beginning in 2005, individuals stepped up to the plate to solve this problem by supplying our wounded warriors with laptop computers and vioce activated software, that overcomes the disabling injuries that have rendered the fingers of these men and women unusable.

The genesis of the project was an Army Captain, Chuck Ziegenfuss, who had been MilBlogging before he was wounded in an IED attack, and discussions with Beth, another blogger and plain old American citizen and school teacher with a heart to do something, from Fuzzilicious Thinking, who put their heads together and kicked this off. It’s a testimony about those who complain vs. those who just get it done. Beth and Soldier’s Angels have now supplied, with the generocity of people from around the world, over 500 laptops. Quite an accomplishment for not working this program for even two years.

The name given to this charity is “Valour-IT,” and as last year, we dedicate the days from now until November 11th as a period to solicit and gather funds to put more systems into the possession of those who have served and now are in need of our help to attempt to restore their ability to use computers to communicate with their friends, family and in the business world.

If you’re not familiar with this project, here is the link to the site where you can find the legitimacy, the history, who is supporting this program in the business world, and testimonies, as well as the link to donate.

for some detailed info on exactly how the Valour-IT laptops are helping the wounded, read this post from Beth, titled “More than a Laptop.”

If you’re familiar with Valour-IT, I ask for your support in spreading the word, telling the story, and checking with the person who controls the purse strings in your household to determine the level of funding you’re able to provide.

I plan to email my contacts, asking the same from them. for those who have a areas where you can post hard copy notices, here is a link to 8 flyers already made up publicize Valour-IT. Print out a few and hang them in full view of youe workmates.

I will endeavor to post the statuss of the fund collections daily, as they are available from the blogs where they are doing the central accounting. We will ask you to decide which service you will donate under, but…in the long run, it matters not, except to provide some of us with the bragging rights if “our” service bests the others.

Update: Black Five, about the biggest MilBlogger there is, has his kick off post up here! Other service team leaders are listed there, but…send your $$$ to the troops thru the Navy button! (Coasties welcomed here!)

Want to play? Sign your blog up here.

Script to add the donation meter is (remove the double quotaion marks from around the first and last “carets” to make the scripting function):

“< "script src="http://www.donationbooster.com/booster/showbutton.php?i=63&item=5&width=70&direction=Vertical&showtop5=No&showgraph=Yes&background=FFFFFF&graph1=FF0066&graph2=990000&text=000000&link=990000&fsize=2&fface=Arial&border=1&bordercolor=000000">“

Trackbacked at:
Linkfest Haven, Mark My Words, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao’s Blog, Bright & Early, Jo’s Cafe, Clash of Civilizations, , Common Folks Using Common Sense, Mr. Tor, Outside the Beltway.

Crossposted at:
Third World County

Category: Blogging, Charities, Military, Open Trackbacks, Supporting the Troops, Technology, Valour-IT | 15 Comments »

Personal Computers – 25 Years and Counting – Part XIII

October 28th, 2006 by xformed

Part XII discussed my entry into graphics and sound editing. An interesting time, and…it helps to understand some of this when I do my headers (which I try to make somewhat topical for the significant posting of the moment.

So off to sea duty once more, aboard a small ship, basically equipped with one administrative computer: Shipboard Naval Administation Program (SNAP) II. It runs on a mini-computer (not to be confused with today’s min sized computers, but “mini” meaning it was smaller than a “mainframe” computer). Once more, the forward thinking of the Supply Corps is evident, as most of the functions on the computer deal with the supplies aboard, but there were also some basic functions like word processing and a “tickler” program (a “to do” list). Besides the tactical computers (AN/UYK-7s/43s) and the Engineering plant computers, not much else.

While I didn’t have to be the Navigator, as the new SURFLANT had recinded the directive requiring the XO to be Navigator, where the Navigator billet was less than O-4, but my CO was striaght forward and told me he was comfortable with that arrangement and he would keep it that way. ON a side note, he did point out he and I had more time in servie and time at sea than the rest of the Wardroom combined. It was a fact of the experience levels we just had to be mindful of.

One of the standard questions, for any ship stationed in Charleston was “what time should we get underway?” The tugs wouldn’t work if the current was over 1 Kt and the Cooper River did have a good cycling of the currents. I took my Mac SE and used HyperCard to make a “card” where I could put in a day’s tide and current data at the standard station (a reference point in the Harbor – all other locations then had a plus/minus time figure listed from that location), then select which other location in the harbor we were. The computer then drew me a chart of the currents, complete with horizontal lines on the graph at the plus/minus one KT “cut off.” I could set that up within a few moments, whenever we were given a schedule change to get underway. I’d printout the graph and sit down with the CO to pick the time, then we would get that info to the Operations Officer to submit the request to the Base Ops. One more time saving project from my hobby to make daily work easier.

The prior XO handed over the “tickler list,” done on the SNAP II computer, in the form of a sheet hanging on a clipboard in our stateroom. Being new at the XO position, it looked very complete to me, but….well, suffice it to say, it had left out several items of interest. That’s not so much a dig at Tom, as there is far too many administrative things to keep track of, even if you work hard at it. Tom detached and within a few weeks, there were a few “ADTAKEs” (Advise Action Taken) messages received, specifically asking (in the polite navy-ese way) where our response were. The Captain told me he wanted to never miss an action item again. He was a serious man, and I was new. I gave the proper “aye, aye, sir” and went to planning how to make this happen. I then began reviewing the tickler file to see where the missed items had been listed. Surprise! They weren’t on the list, or the older archived items in the database. I spent a little time trying to figure out how SNAP II functioned in this sub-program. NO one aboard, including the SNAP II Coordinator (an enlisted billet, with specific training) couldn’t answer my questions on how to get recurring items in, so I basically blew off the SNAP II system as a tool for this work. I learned much later, near the end of my tour, that the tickler program was pretty substantial in it’s abliity to handle the task, but none of the “experts” could tell me that when I needed it.

I was able to acquire a Z-248 computer and set it up in my room. I purchased a copy of the Ashton-Tate dBase III+ database manager and began a project in search of an acronym, that would keep my butt from being bitten by “adminis-trivia.” The first acronym was “Admin Warfare SHipboard Internal Ticker,” but I canned that one, selecting “Administrative Warfare SHipbOard Operational Tickler” (AW-SHOOT).

The program allowed me to enter any item needing attention, the date received, the date the response was required (internally), the primary and secondary department/collateral duty position responsible for the action and the reference for the requirement. I made the selection for responsibility standard items, easing the effort to keep things standard for report generation. I could have the total report, or select a few common time frames for printout, like 30, 60, 90 and 180 days in the future. I could printout reports by the departments (I placed collateral duty responsibilities within the departments the person was assigned to – more on that choice later). I could dump the entire database as well.

Items, such as regular reports, could be entered with their periodicity and you then entered how many far into the future you wanted them to propagate the entry out into the future. This was quite a handy feature, and I used it, in one scenario to enter the required officer career counseling (for retention purposes) and keyed them to each officer’s tour aboard the Ship. That helped us establish a mandated program (which I had not seen done anywhere in my prior 13 years of service).

It took several months, and the program evolved daily, but the “workflow” was: Up before breakfast, down to Radio Central, to the Wardroom for a cup of Coffee, back to the stateroom to scan the traffic and add any new items of interest. At the end of the entry process, I’d pull up the print menu. The normal printout menu dumped an all encompassing report for the time frame selected (normally 30 days, unless it was the first workday of a month, when all itmes would be printed), which would be put on my clipboard and hung near my door, for manual annotations, and then a report dumped for each of the departments and the Command Senior Chief (same time frames as mentioned above). I would, once the print porcess was confirmed to be functioning without the tractor feed mangling the paper, I’d head down to breakfast. After breakfast, I’d separate the reports and head for Officer’s Call.

Each report showed the items, along with the responsible parties and the “Line of Death,” (borrowed from my Ops off of Libya in ’86 experience) which crossed the page at the end of today’s items. If it was close to the top of your page, it meant a light day, if it was way down the page, you better be able to muster your “staff” or convince me you needed more time.

While at first, it wasn’t well received at first. I’ll admit, it did take a little while for acceptance, but….one day, the Combat Systems Officer (CSO), Mac, came and asked if I could give him his items on disk (this was after we got computers for all departments), so he could further distribute the tasking to his divsion officers. I did this at first by “hand,” and later modifed the program so you could install it and set up your own categories of tasking. I refined that version, then it had greater application. The Admin Office began using an installation for tracking their own work, as did the CS Department.

When my relief came, I had 24 months of known reports and all current action items in the program. I got a note from Starr about a year later, thanking me and commenting that early in his time aboard, if he wasn’t sure what the tasking was exactly, the “conventional wisdom” of the Department Heads to him was, if it’s on there, do it. He said he never got an ADTAKE, thanks to the program.

Besides the programming aspects, I became very good at checking all the publication/instruction/notice changes coming in and going right to the “Required Reports” section. I plwed “new” requirements in the program right away. A side effect was I found out there had been reports required that in my some of my earlier duties, I should have prepared and submitted. If I Saw a report in a new document like this, I’d ask for the prior copy, check the date, and look in it’s required report section. Sure enough, many times there was the same report as in the new version of the document…

On top of this part of the story, I used the program to pull off an incredible practical joke. PN1 (later PNC) Weber and I used to have regular conversations about projecting influence beyond your time aboard. What he didn’t know, is I had modified his program. I detached in early March and left from Bahrain. On 1 April, 1990, PNC Weber started the program to be greeted by a splash screen announcing there had been a security problem (it was login/password protected) and all files were being erased! The internal speaker played a siren type sound for about 20 seconds, then the next screen told the operator this was an April Fool’s joke and all data was intact. When the Ship got stateside, PNC Weber called me to concede I got him.

About a year later, I got a call from one of the former division officers (to remain unnamed, at his request),who said at first he “dislked the idea of AW-SHOOT,” but…he was now in charge of a school and would like copy. I sent one, after we had a good laugh and him swearing me to secrecy.

So ends the tale of AW-SHOOT.

Next episode: Automating the workforce and computer generated messages.

Category: History, Military, Military History, Navy, Technology | 2 Comments »

“EGADS! It Makes the Ganglia Twitch!” – Part I

October 27th, 2006 by xformed

Bizzare, strange and, if it wasn’t for the understanding that some people still think like people did in before the Age of Enlightenment, it wouldn’t be comprehensible!

In the UK, the head Islamic Cleric says it’s OK to kill gays…

*BUT…*

Palestinian Gays fleeing to Israel!

Hmmmmmm….There are gays among the Muslims are….figuring out that their “enemy” will treat them with more respect and most likely save their lives….

If enough Muslims, who are gay, not that there’s anything wrong with that, move into Israel, maybe Israel will be saved from extermination!

Just thinkin’…

Category: Political | 1 Comment »

In Search of the Grand Unified Theory – Part IV

October 27th, 2006 by xformed

From Part II of the series, I stated on 10/03/2006, as the Mark Foley scandal began:

I will, once more, predict (and I’m certainly no oracle), that, as one TV correspondent says last night, they are getting many emails from other pages. It is only realistic to believe, that the subjects being discussed in those emails coming in will include human beings, most likely almost exclusively male, and, there ceratinly may be some Democrats in the bunch. Whether that is disclosed before or after the elections next month isn’t necessarily the issue, but the fact that it’s a human condition in the sexually related society we live in. The “backsplatter” will get those who are making exceptionally bad (and in some cases, illegal) choices, but it isn’t reasonable to brand everyone of their party as participating in the same behavior.

Well, it didn’t pop out quite as I envisioned, but…James Webb seems to have quite the active imagination.

I’d be willing to bet many conservative minded Virginians, who may have been leaning towards a “punishment vote” mentaility will come back and decide to cast one for George.

How will the Dems portray this one? “He only wrote about it, so it’s a freedom of speech issue! Nah! Nah! Nah!” If that’s so, then I guess text messaging 18 or older used to be pages before, but are not now and are not minors anymore when it occured, should similarly be consider the same? Nope…not via the media’b’Allah. You see, it will come down to the party who supports the organization that supports the ACLU as opposed to one from the party who says such things are a danger and asks for laws to protect people from it.

Anyhow, I tried to warn the Democrats, but no, they didn’t listen and all I did was recall some not so distant history of the “culture of corruption screeching to try and help.

Category: History, Humor, Political | Comments Off on In Search of the Grand Unified Theory – Part IV

Current Polling Results Shows….

October 27th, 2006 by xformed

OSL Election Endorsement

Geez…’nuff said

H/T: Right Wing Nation

Category: Humor, Political | 1 Comment »

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