Think about how much mail you receive in a given week.  Now how much of this is junk you never read.  Oh what you do read, how much of that could have been delivered electronically?  I like many people typically pay whatever bills I can online.   Some companies leave a lot to be desired with their electronic payment websites, put if the option is there, I usually take advantage of it.  At this point the only thing I depend on the mail on is Netflix deliveries.  Eventually I would imagine their entire collection will be available electronically which would be a godsend once internet speeds can keep up with the demand.

Over the last few years the prices of stamp have incrementally increased, but I haven’t seen many real changes in the postal system overall.  I suppose the flat rate shipping boxes were a good idea, but ultimately this does not benefit the majority of their customers.  A recent development that will come in handy is the new smart barcode system, but this system still seems light years behind what Fed Ex, UPS and others have been doing for ages.

Shutting down locations is bound to happen to help decrease the bleeding as will reducing delivery to only 5 days a week.  But ultimately neither of these measures will save the postal system.  Unfortunately I think it may be too late for this old dinosaur due to decades on indecision and non innovation.  Companies like Earth Class Mail seem to be on to something with electronic mail delivery, but I even wonder how effective that will become in the future.

Ultimately this comes down to the same rules that govern all businesses: Evolve or Die.

I should be back in Dallas full time in a couple weeks and once I get settled in, I “promise” to post more frequently. In the mean time I need to get through all the inauguration stuff this weekend and prepare to go to Phoenix for the National Sports Forum next weekend.

Talk to you guys soon…

For me personally this has been a really big year.  I made a move to Washington, DC in January not really knowing much about the area.  I just went out on a limb and it has paid off really well.  I’ve got a great job that allows me to use alot of my skills and expertise as well as find new ways to progress my career.  In the past 12 months I’ve been fortunate enough to meet a ton of great people both in the DC area and around the country.  Although the year hasn’t been completely rosey, I wouldn’t change it for the world because I think this is the year I finally came into my own.

One of my greater accomplishments this year has been starting this blog and becoming the persona of “GeekyCyberDad”.  It all started out with my Twitter account and continues to grow every day.  I’ve literally grown to 10 pages of Google results all about me.  God is good GREAT and is continuing to bless me more each day.

I can only imagine what 2009 has in store for me, but if this year was any indication then I’m sure I’m in for the ride of my life.  If you’ve stopped by to read this today, then I challenge you to reflect on this year and truly find some things (we all have a few) to be thankful about and carry over into next year.

There are a few parts of this issue that I just don’t understand, namely how closing a school fixes the problem.  School administrators are pressed to find appropriate resources for the schools they are currently maintaining.  However the last time I checked, the majority of schools in the Dallas school district are facing overcrowding issues.  I know it’s a very difficuly situation to fix but moving 1,000+ underachieving students to a different school that has higher test scores does not seem like a viable solution to me.  Even if you split the students up among various schools in the area, you still have to deal with overcrowding issues in the new schools.  If a school already has a hard time meeting the demands of its current students, what will it do when you add a few hundred more?  There simply isn’t the space to allow for this is pretty much ever school in the district.

My second concern about this issue is how the student’s needs are being met.  High schools have 4 years to educate their students and prepare them for the real world.  For many of them this is the last formal education they will ever receive.  One of the biggest things that annoys me about this article is how the school district is offering incentives to teachers to get them to come in and teach in these destitute schools like Samuell.  The fact that the incentives are being offered is not my problem, but rather who they are being given to.  Typically the recipients are fresh out of college, with very little formal experience in the classroom.  The article even states that this year’s principle at Samuell has never worked at a high school before, but rather only in elementary.  While I’m sure that his intentions are well placed, it is a very poor decision to place to fate of a school that serves a large portion of a community in the hands of someone who has very little experience leading at that level.  That makes about as much sense as a corporation facing bankruptcy hiring a recent MBA to lead them to solvency.  Maybe the school district should take some tips from the private sector and realize that the solution to the problem is finding a way to bring in proven leaders who has a track record of success.

I started attending Samuell in the fall of 1992 going into my sophomore year.  I spent my freshman year at nearby Lincoln High School and elected to transfer after my parents found a new house in the Pleasant Grove area.  During my 3 years at Samuell I can definitely say that I enjoyed the majority of my high school experience, but always knew that the education I was receiving was not on par with that of some of my cohorts in other parts of town.  At the end of my junior year I had the opportunity to graduate a year early, needing only to take two courses in summer school to finish my time.  I decided to come back for my senior year and enjoy what was left of my childhood.  I had a pretty intensive course load packed full of AP and honors classes which led to me eventually being named class valedictorian.  Midway through the year I received a visit from a recruiter at the University of Texas at Austin and in an instant my future was sealed as a Longhorn.

Through a good portion of my last 2 years of high school I found myself not preparing for college, but rather tutoring my fellow classmates in key subject areas in order to help them pass the state mandated TAAS test.  I passed the test in 10th grade getting only a few question incorrect in the math and reading sections and scoring a perfect score in the writing section.  Over the next two years I felt compelled to help my friends because that was just the right thing to do.  A few of my 11th grade teachers started the tutoring program in which a few of us students who had already made it would get together with others in our free time and help them along.  I spent countless hours volunteering for this effort as did quite a number of my other classmates.  Together we made sure that as many of our friends as were interested had the resources they needed to improve in these basic skill areas and many took advantage of it.  I have always taken great pride in the fact that I helped a few people achieve the merit of high school graduation especially since it came almost naturally to me.  I will never graduation night sitting on the stage after giving my speech and hugging one of my best friends as she walked by to receive her diploma.  A few years later I found myself in a bank and another friend I tutored worked as a teller there.  After seeing exchanging greetings he pulled me over to the side to thank me for what I had done in high school because he might not have graduated otherwise.

The warning signs were there 13+ years ago while I was still in school.  Preparations should have been made then to avoid the situation we are now faced with.  While I loved being able to help out my fellow classmates, ultimately this was not my responsibility.  For every moment I spent working with them, I was losing valuable time learning what I needed to prepare for college.

The reason why this article struck a nerve with me because I was one of the lucky ones who made it through W.W. Samuell and it truly saddens me to see a school district giving up on the opportunity to shape the lives of hundreds of youth in the community.  I say giving up because in my eyes that is exactly what it is.  Instead of finding a way to fix the situation, they are choosing to just sweep it under the rug for the time being, until it crops up again in a different school.  We are facing a similar situation here in the DC area with schools being closed all over the district.  The thing about playing musical chairs is that eventually there are no more chairs to sit in, and what will you do then?

All in all I believe Apple produces very good products that come from its strict standard for design and customer service.  However as with any company of this size, there will always be problems that crop up some of which are unavoidable and others that are totally caused by bad management decisions.  Although I am an ex Apple employee, I will never claim any knowledge of why they make alot of their decisions concerning their product lines, other than a decision has to be made and stuck to.

Sometime in the next month or so, the first phone based on Google’s Android operating system will finally be released to the public in the form of the HTC “Dream”.  While this has been talked about across the net, the months leading up to this release have seen the public interest in Android drop substancially.  I’m sure some of this has been caused by the release of the iPhone 3G and a slew of other mobile phones across the market.  A certain percentage of this decline can probably also be attributed to the lack of marketing from T-Mobile and Google about this device and operating system.  Unlike Apple they seem to be taking the top secret approach, only allowing bits and pieces of information to be leaked out at any particular time.  I’m not exactly sure if this is the way I would handle the product launch, but we’ll find out soon enough how well it works.

Outside of marketing, there are a few reasons why Apple should ultimately be concerned about the release of Android and any devices that are built to run it.

Android is open source

Pretty much everyone has heard of open source software but the general public has never really cared much about it, due to Microsoft’s death grip on the personal computer OS market.  The main reason this will be important is the same reason the iPhone is so popular, applications.  To date Apple has reported millions of downloads from the App Store.  While the standard iPhone software is definitely nice, the true power of the iPhone is in the hundreds of custom applications that have been developed for it.  This also does not include all the apps that were developed and installed before there was a true iPhone SDK.

The biggest issue with the current business model for iPhone applications is that it is too tightly controlled by Apple.  First of all, to even begin using the iPhone SDK you must own a Mac.  Then to get your application listed within the App Store you must meet very stringent guidelines developed by Apple for rule compliance.  On the other hand with Android, developers can use a SDK that has been ported to Windows, OS X and Linux.  Apparently the powers that be at Google understand the success of Android lies in the applications that are developed for it, and are willing to make sure they reach the largest number of developers with their tools.  Even though a lot of developers are not currently taking advantage of these tools, I believe many more will once devices are released and the true power of Android is allowed to shine.

Android is open source

I repeat this again because the second reason why this is important is that Android is not tied to any particular piece of hardware or phone carrier.  This is hugely important because it frees Android from any device or carrier limitations.  Apple has a long held belief that the best way to maintain the quality of your product is to oversee every aspect of it.  This is why Apple is the only company that legally makes hardware to run their OS X software.  Ever since Apple’s inception, except for a brief period when they allowed cloning, this has been the case.  Many industry pundits attribute this rule to the reason why Apple has always trailed Microsoft in operating system popularity even though they arguably make the better product.

If Apple is the only company that makes both iPhone hardware and software, yet any company is allowed to make Android hardware and any developer is allowed to develop software for it, you do the math.  The biggest reason for most people not switching to iPhones has been simply the requirement for them to switch cellular companies and incur contract termination fees.  Additionally many people, myself included just don’t want to deal with AT&T’s service.  However over the next year, I’d be willing to be every major carrier will support some device running Android.

Android is Google

Google is the new Microsoft.  Almost everything they touch turns to gold.  They have the money to invest in any of their products to make them successful.  They have the brand name that instantly makes even the most non technical person curious.  A few weeks ago, they released their new Chrome browser and while I was hesistant at first, I almost use it exclusively now.  Sure it has problems rendering some sites, but it doesn’t crash nearly as much as Firefox has lately and it has nowhere near the compatibility issues as IE.  More importantly to me it runs on the Webkit engine which also powers the mobile browsers in Android and the iPhone.

I like Google because they get it.  They start with a simple idea and grow it until it becomes something greater.  The most important part of that sentence is that they start simple.  So yes the Android interface in its current state is very simple, and thats what I like about it.  Over time Google will invest more into it until it becomes a near perfect product.  But also in the meantime if I need something that it doesn’t offer I can probably find an application out there that does it.  And if even that doesn’t work, I have the tools I need to do it myself.

All in all Google runs the internet whether any of us like it or not.  Getting into the mobile game was a brilliant move for them because they know that’s where the Internet is headed.  I haven’t figured out how to predict the future, but one thing I will predict is that Android is going to be a game changer sooner rather than later.

I remember growing up and always looking up at my dad as he seemed like he was the tallest person in the world.  He was 6’6″ and seemed to tower over everyone around.  For some reason it never really registered with me that one day I would grow to be this tall, although I was always the biggest one amongst my friends.  Finally I looked up and I had grown to be 6’7″ and finally had lived up to my potential.

Although I live more than 1000 miles from my son, I try to come back and visit him as much as possible.  As things have slowed down a bit at work, I have loosely committed to coming back here once a month and spending a weekend with him.  At the same time I try to make a point to spend time talking to him on weekends, although this doesn’t always work out too well given how he is completely distracted most times I call.

I think the bigger message in this blog is although I’m not around him 24/7 like I would like to be, I still have a very active part in his life.  I never knew how tough being a dad could be until he was born.  Although I can’t say that my life was drastically altered, I definitely had to look at alot of things differently.  Paying child support is not my favorite thing to do every month, but knowing that he doesn’t have to want for anything definitely helps me sleep at night.  Although I’ll never be the perfect parent, every day I try to do what I can to make a difference in his life.  I’m sure he doesn’t even understand some of the sacrifices that I make for him right now, but I know one day it will make for an interesting discussion.

The main reason I really enjoy being a dad is simply knowing that at least one person in this world is striving to be like me.  This knowledge helps me make alot of day to day decisions, and definitely keeps me out of some of the trouble of my younger years.

Although being a dad definitely isn’t easy, I can say it’s a ton of fun.  It doesn’t require a bunch of money, although that helps.  I think the main key is your level of commitment to your child.  They are just looking for someone who is genuinely concerned with them and getting to know them.

More than anything else this situation makes me question why everything must have a label.  I really don’t understand why we must have stuff for black people and white people.  A long time ago a big deal was made to prevent this from happening, see Civil Rights Movement of the 60s, but here we are 50 years later dealing with some of the same issues.

The biggest reason I’m not a fan of “black” organizations, sites, etc. is that I think it makes a double standard.  While I know that organizations like the NAACP were created out of a desperate need to give a voice to a voiceless people, what would we do if there was a National Association for the Advanced of White People.  Or what if there were the White Entertainment Network?  Or maybe even White Enterprise magazine?  Well I think we already know what would happen.  Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition would be all over the news protesting in every manner possible.

The second reason I’m not a fan of separate organizations is that in my opinion many of them are completely inferior to their mainstream competitors.  Need an example, look at the quality of shows on MTV vs BET, and they are owned by the same company.  This is why I don’t think we need “black” blogs or “black” anything else for that matter.

I think the key to success is to simply focus on the quality of content, whatever that may be. If you are going to start a technology blogs, find the best tech bloggers around and that will push you over the top, much more than bringing attention to the fact that all of you are black, green, or anything else.  At the end of the day I believe most of us are more concerned about quality above everything else.  If a group of dogs got together and found a way to deliver compelling content that I’m interested in I would definitely tune in.