Health care reform
I am not going to pretend that I understand the intricacies of the health care debate. I do know that something needs to happen. When I started in “the real world” about a decade ago, it was pretty common to have health care fully covered by your employer. That now seems about impossible to find. And this is just in the span of a decade.
One thing that bothers me, though, is how fast and loose people on the right use terms like “socialism.” On one hand, we hear how a public option for health care insurance would be a huge intrusion of the government into the private sector. Yet, these same people will talk about how terrible it would be to cut Medicare, a government program. For these people who claim that Obama and Democrats are socialists, will they just come out and call for an end to other socialist programs like public schools, public roadways, flu vaccination programs, insurance on bank deposits… the list goes on. I never hear it explained why government’s intervention in some areas is okay but in other areas it is nothing short of the fall of capitalism.
I don’t think that anyone can honestly claim that the healthcare system, as is, is working well for middle class and lower class America. And, so, it looks like government will have to get involved. So this pure ideological argument from the right seems like a waste of time to me. Haven’t we already realized that a pure market approach is not going to solve this problem and the government is going to get involved? So let’s talk about the specifics of how the fix the problem instead of trying to derail the reform effort.
Windows Vista – or why I am switching back
I have a Macbook Pro computer. I have been using the Macintosh off and on for awhile. As I thought about purchasing a new laptop, I really wanted a 17-inch screen. I had two 17-inch laptops previous to my Macbook Pro but I just couldn’t afford any Mac laptop with a 17-inch screen. Right now, their 17-inch model starts at $2,499. Seriously. It is a really nice laptop and if you priced out a Windows laptop with the same exact specs, it might be a similar cost. But I just could not justify spending that much on a laptop. And, I could not get that screen size in the resolution I want.
I use a computer pretty much all day and I’ve always found a 17-inch screen at 1440 x 900 very comfortable. The laptop I have now is the same resolution (1440 x 900) with a 15-inch screen and I have noticed myself getting a lot more eye strain. So, to get ready for switching back to Windows, I have installed Windows Vista, via Boot Camp, on my Macintosh and have been running that full time for about four months.
My impression is that Mac OS X is a better operating system. I have been dealing with some of the kruft that happens when you’ve installed and uninstalled and used a Windows system for some time. It definitely feels slower than when it was freshly installed. I have run registry cleaners and that seemed to help somewhat… along with killing and not letting me enter registration information for a piece of software I use daily (Navicat). It is just more to worry about with Windows – it seems like more maintenance.
I also feel like I am rewarding Microsoft for their poor software in a way. You see, as a web developer, I spend a LOT of time debugging for Internet Explorer. On the Macintosh that meant having Parallels open with Windows XP. With my machine, I have a maximum of three gigs of RAM which goes very quickly with two OSes and a couple of Adobe apps running. Also, Microsoft Office 2008 is sooooo slow. Office 2007 is very quick on Vista. Also, not Microsoft’s fault, is that Dreamweaver on Mac OS X has some very annoying bugs that made it very difficult to use.
I am hopeful that Windows 7 will address some of the performance degradation that happens over time on earlier versions of Windows. On the whole, I am happy with Vista. I actually like the interface and I think the performance for running applications is better than Mac OS X, on the whole.
Watching the Mariners
I am not sure if I am supposed to be getting this channel or if it is a fluke, but right now I’m receiving a baseball station so I get to watch a little Mariners baseball and see one of the final games of the season. For those who don’t know, I am a Seattle Mariners and Miami Dolphins fan. I think I just wanted to be contrarian with rooting for Seattle – I didn’t want to cheer for the Red Sox since they were my brother’s favorite team. Had I realized the whole time zone thing, I may not have become a fan of a west coast team. But I’ve been following them for so long that they are my team. I liked the Dolphins mostly because of Dan Marino. The 80s Dolphins were a very exciting team to watch.
This has been a great year for Seattle. Ichiro has now racked up over 200 hits for the last 9 straight years, breaking the major league record which stood for over one hundred years. And, going from a really disappointing 100 loss season where their payroll was over $100 million in 2008, they seem to have really laid the foundation for a brighter future. They’ve assured themselves of a winning season this year which is exciting. And, of course, Griffey Jr.’s return to Seattle has had some incredible moments as well.
Beltre just hit a solo shot. This will probably be the last year I get to see him in a Mariners uniform. It is too bad he spent so much of it on the DL.
Anyway, it is time to switch gears and follow the Red Sox. Now that I am older and can actually tolerate my brother, I’ve grown to appreciate them. But I am excited for next year and I hope to see some more M’s games via MLB.tv.
Internet Explorer and PNG hacks
I ran into an interesting (well, interesting to me in an infuriatingly frustrating kind of way) problem with a site I had worked on and Internet Explorer (6, 7, and 8). The site displayed fine but after the page displayed I could see the status bar churning away. It would chug along and I’d watch it download hundreds of mystery items. I couldn’t replicate the behavior in any other browser.
As many web developers know, Internet Explorer 6 cannot natively handle transparent PNGs but you could overcome this by using a behavior (.htc) file. In this particular site, the .htc file was being loaded regardless of the version of Internet Explorer. It was this behavior file that was causing Internet Explorer to process every PNG on the page. I put in a conditional IE statement and this solved the problem for Internet Explorer 7 and 8.
WT… PDF?
I am working on a project for work that requires the merging of two PDFs. One PDF needs to be an editable PDF and needs to be populated with data from a MySQL database. This combined PDF then needs to be sent to the user's browser for download. I figured out how to combine two test PDFs and I figured out how to populate an editable PDF via PHP. However, the scripts that can combine PDFs seem to only work reliably with PDFs that are version 1.4 or lower. And, of course, the editing functionality doesn't seem to be available in PDF version 1.4. Soooo, I can do one or the other. I can combine the PDFs or I can populate the PDF with data.
I am going to next look into Adobe's Live Cycle software which they don't seem to list pricing for. Should be interesting.
Ugh… long day
It was a long, stressful day today. I made an error on a work project and had to work on it at night after going to my nephew's soccer game. I am tired of feeling overwhelmed and stressed. Hopefully things will get better.
I am finally getting around to setting up my blog. I've been meaning to do something with my website for ages. I'm not quite sure what I am going to use it for yet but I expect to post movie and game reviews. Perhaps some writing about my adventures in programming.
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