Ok, now you might be thinking: “Big surprise, Dustin, the web developer, chose a security company that has .com in the name”. I promise you though, it’s more than just the name!

Here’s my reasoning:

1) I don’t have a regular land line (POTS) and I don’t intend to get one just to support a security system (especially since it seems to be pretty easy to cut).

Alarm.com uses a wireless cellular (GSM) system — no wires to cut and reliable service 24 hours a day.

2) I don’t want my security system to depend exclusively on a home internet connection (and again… that’s easy to cut).

There are alternate companies who rely exclusively on home broadband internet based communications. Home internet connections are fine for email and web surfing, but I would never trust my home security to a cable or DSL modem.

3) I want a system that is built solidly and will protect my family and home from the blights of society.

Alarm.com currently uses a GE Concord panel, a highly regarded system in the security arena. It’s reliable, tough, and well-tested.

4) I need flexibility, expandability, and advanced features, while still being easy to use (since my wife is not a computer programmer).

The panel used by Alarm.com currently has 96 available wireless zones, 16 wired zones (plus 2 smoke detector zones), easy to use interfaces, and everything else you could possible need.

5) I prefer a price that doesn’t require a 2nd mortgage to keep running (the price should be mostly offset by a homeowners insurance discount).

Alarm.com is a relative bargain compared to other companies (especially making use of wireless signaling and internet reconfiguration).

6) I yearn for a system that appeals to my nerdy gadget-oriented side.

This is the part that really had me convinced! Imagine being able to log in to your alarm system from anywhere in the world and see what is going on currently and what has happened in the past.

What if you could program new security codes, arm and disarm the system, set up lighting schedules (based on events like doors opening) using standard X10 controllers?

What if you’d like to see if “someone” has gotten into the alcohol cabinet when they weren’t supposed to?

Alarm.com makes it all possible and much more, through their powerful and simple online interface. The portal makes programming your alarm system a snap and it’s very simple to set up notification contact lists (both phone and email) for everything from a door opening to true alarm events.

So, add all those requirements & features up and what do you get? Alarm.com tops my list. In fact, even if you take out many of my personal “requirements”, Alarm.com is still the best bang-for-the-buck of any security company I researched or talked to (and I talked to a lot of them).

I can also personally attest to the over-the-top customer service at Alarm.com. They respond to your emails, treat you like a real person, and don’t have a foreign accent (ie: they are easy to understand).

At this point, I’ve chosen the equipment and picked an installation date. I’ll update you as the house nears completion and the service goes live.

Leave a comment if you have any questions.

EDIT: Please read my new review everyone – it’s been a while since I wrote this. 

So, this week, I kept track. The following was my PC usage for Mon, Apr. 30th through Sun., May 6th:

Dustin’s Week – Time Spent At The Computer

Monday – Friday
- Approximately 42 hours for all five days at my full-time web development job.
- At least 23 hours at home (after work) programming, doing the finances, surfing, and gaming.

Saturday
- At least 11 hours, although two of that was at my friends house playing XBOX (that counts as a PC, right?).

Sunday
- At least 7 hours after church working on side projects and battling my buddies on BF2.

That’s a grand total of 83 hours this week. Not too shabby. ::pats self on back::

Tonight, I Googled the classic symptoms of a computer addiction and immediately found this article. Dr. Maressa Hecht Orzack listed these highly interesting psychological symptoms of computer addiction.

The 7 Symptoms of Computer Addiction

1) “Having a sense of well-being or euphoria while at the computer”
- Come on now, programming just makes me happy!

2) “Inability to stop the activity”
- It’s a part of my job and it’s fun!

3) “Craving more and more time at the computer”
- If only I didn’t have to sleep, then there would be enough time.

4) “Neglect of family and friends”
- My wife is in law school, she’d rather me be busy than bothering her while studying anyways. My friends… they talk to me on the computer (TeamSpeak)!

5) “Feeling empty, depressed, irritable when not at the computer”
- I’m irritable because it’s inefficient to go camping without internet access and electricity! Seriously, why no WiFi at the campground?

6) “Lying to employers and family about activities”
- This one I would never ever do, I promise.

7) “Problems with school or job”
- How is it a problem? You think my boss wants me to work less? Geesh.

I realize that a ‘supposed‘ computer addiction is also strongly related to a ‘supposed‘ internet addiction. But that’s a whole other article unto itself and doesn’t apply to me either.

So, if you are a computer addict, please look somewhere else for support. I’m sure there are plenty of other people out there that can help you more than I can.

But me, I’m just fine.

To me, it initially just seemed like a fancy version of Gmail. However, as I really started delving into it, I was thoroughly impressed.

Here’s the general description from Google:

Communicate…
Give your users Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Talk accounts that
use your own custom domain, helping them to stay connected and work
together more effectively.

Collaborate and publish…
Docs & Spreadsheets lets users share files and collaborate in
real-time. The Start Page is the first place your users will look to
preview their inboxes and calendars, access your essential content, and
search the web.

…and get on with business.
It’s all hosted by Google, so there’s no hardware or software to
install or download, and minimal setup and maintenance. You can get up
and running quickly, even if you don’t have technical resources.

To try it out for myself, I moved all the email accounts for my web development business to Google Apps Standard Edition. I have to admit, the changeover worked flawlessly. All I had to do was verify my domain by uploading a file to my server. Once verified, I was able to get the email moving to Google’s servers with a few simple MX record changes (and as far as I know didn’t miss one single email in the process). Soon after, I created some additional CNAME’s so I could access the calendar, document, and start page functionalities a little easier. Once those few things were done, I tinkered around with some of the admin controls in Google Apps, but for the most part, the process was complete. It all worked amazingly well.

I am totally sold on this system. I think this new offering will change the way many small, medium, and large businesses handle their communication infrastructures. The real advantages come with the Premier Edition of the service. The most important additions are as follows:

- 99.9% uptime guarantee for email
- 10 GB of space (and I suspect that will grow in the future)
- No ads in emails
- Conference room and resource scheduling
- A very poweful API system (including custom sign-on, authentication, user provisioning & management, and support for email gateways allowing backups of data).
- Email migration tools (in the works)
- 24/7 support via phone/email
- A variety of 3rd party applications and services to enhance the system
- Extremely low-cost ($50/user/year)

Yes, the amazing email client is incredible with it’s spam filtering, organizational ‘labeling’, and search functions, but the other tools included are the pieces that will create an evolution in how businesses operate (in my humble opinion):

- Imagine having the ability to have incredibly powerful calendar/scheduling tools without the hassle and complexity of expensive Exchange servers.

- Imagine being able to only allow certain groups of people (or individuals) to see certain calendars and events in real time, with just a few simple clicks.

- Imagine having a chat client integrated with your system that allows quick and effortless communications instead of picking up the phone or waiting on email responses. What if this client was embedded throughout the system and all communication could be archived and saved for security/legal purposes? What if that chat client also allowed voice calls to be made for free over the internet?

- Imagine being able to collaborate on documents or spreadsheets with teams of users all in real time over the web. What if you could publish these documents for only certain members of your organization to see? What if they could be saved in popular document and spreadsheet formats for desktop editing?

- What about a very powerful, yet simple & easy to use corporate start page that has important information customized for each particular employees’ job functions and can be easily branded?

- What if your users could access this data anywhere in the world with just a browser? No more need for VPN’s (to access email securely), Outlook clients, software updates, et cetera.

- What if the majority of these systems integrated with wireless/portable devices like BlackBerry phones with little-to-no effort?

- What if this entire system was simple to administrate for even the largest of companies? You would hardly need one employee (at most) to manage the system. No exchange server experts needed ever again (sorry guys)!

- What if this amazing system was hosted in some of the most secure and reliable data centers in the world (Google’s) and optimized for world-wide use? No more worrying about expensive hardware, licensing, storage, bandwidth, replication, or down-time concerns.

- What if there were a plethora of 3rd party and advanced packages allowing custom email gateway services, archiving, security, authentication, et cetera?

It’s all available right now!

So go and check out Google Apps Enterprise Edition… no matter what your company size, it has the potential to save your company time, effort, and vast quantities of money while increasing productivity and profit. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

So, what is it that we do?

Let me quote from our web site so I get it correct: “Since 1952, we have been helping quality conscious retailers and manufacturers ensure the quality of the products they sell and by doing so protect their business and their most important asset–their customers’ continued patronage.”

Basically, we help out the consumer by ensuring quality products are on the shelves and the retailer by ensuring they don’t sell products that will be returned frequently or are hazardous to the health/safety of their customers. Not only that, but we do it faster, better, and cheaper than the competition!

With all that being said, let me explain why it’s a cool company. I have to openly admit that our testing laboratories are really hypnotic (interesting) places to visit.

We have a world-wide presence in three major categories of testing:

1) Food — essentially anything edible
2) Softlines — essentially anything you wear
3) Hardlines — everything else (yes, a massive category)

On my initial interview with the company, I received a first-class tour of the Food Labs located in Bentonville, Arkansas. I can truly say that the food testing process is awe-inspiring. The employees who test these food products are highly skilled and the testing procedures they go through are rigorous, complicated, and highly accurate. They use machinery and test equipment in the lab that I swear I’ve only seen in Star Trek episodes. But outside of the cool equipment, even the simple taste-testing area is neat.

Truthfully though, the Hardlines lab is my real favorite. Can you imagine how fun it is to test the break strength of steel cable? Or to see how many tons it takes to cause an industrial shelving unit to collapse? How bout checking the electrical bleed tendencies of high power air conditioners? You can imagine the fun when it comes time to test barbecue grills! It’s a really fascinating place that is always buzzing with activity, huge machines, and strange noises. Every time I go there, at least one test-in-progress captivates my attention for a lengthy time (usually only as long as I’m allowed to stand there gawking). I’m just skimming the top here, but I think you get the picture; it’s a cool place.

But even the Softlines Lab has neat stuff going on. Fiber analysis, color accuracy testing, & children’s sleepwear flammability testing just barely touches on all the interesting testing that occurs there.

So yeah, basically, it’s a pretty unique place to work.

As a web developer, I don’t get to see all the testing that occurs every day, but my job is to enable the testers and the company itself to achieve goals more accurately, efficiently, and faster by leveraging existing technology and creating new technology where it fits.

The employees at Consumer Testing Labs have a lot of pride in their work and although I don’t get to blow stuff up on a daily basis, I really enjoy the fact that my efforts enable our employees’ hard work to pay off even more for themselves and the company as a whole.

If you have any interest in working for us, please check out our job openings (and tell em’ I sent ya). We always seem to have new jobs available as the company keeps growing and growing.

In the mean time, just remember that we might’ve tested that chain saw you use every weekend or that piece of cheese you ate last night; so feel free to silently thank us that neither one killed you!

Now, normally I haven’t had trouble showing up near the top for most topics, but lately (in the last six months) I’ve seen my rankings doing better than they ever have before (overall). I know it’s only a portion of the true reason, but I also just noticed my PageRank is now 5 and that seems to be a contributing factor.

After a little celebration, I checked out the PageRank Prediction Tool to see where I was headed. This thing, however inaccurate it’s predictions may be, is fun to play around with. It’s fun to see what the big domains are doing and I really like to check out the competition and see how they are “really doing”.

I’d recommend taking a second to play around with the Page Rank Prediction Tool if you get a chance.

You might ask yourself: “What’s so special about a few algorithms”? Well, I don’t care who you are, if you are a programmer of ANY type, this stuff is good for you to know and use!

I actually enjoyed going back and looking at some of the problems I worked on back in college. Truthfully, these bad boys can make your job (as a programmer) a whole lot easier and your code a whole lot more efficient.

So come on, check out The Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures.

Note: The Byzantine Generals Problem is still my favorite.

At first, I was a little worried that he had ascertained the photographs in some clandestine way.  However, it turns out that a close friend of his actually worked in the reactor and had taken some these amazing pictures of the inside bowels of a modern nuclear reactor.

Feel free to check all the pictures out in my gallery if you have a bit of interest.

Interesting Note:  That blue glow seen in some of the pictures is no Photoshop effect my friends; it's actually Cherenkov Radiation.  According to Wikipedia, the glow is caused by “electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle passes through an insulator at a speed greater than the speed of light in that medium. The characteristic 'blue glow' ” seen above is an example of this phenomenon.

Tagged: Nuclear Power Plant, Nuclear Power Plant Pictures, Nuclear Power Plant Photos, Nuclear Pictures, Nuclear Photos, Power Plant Pictures, Reactor Photos, Reactor Pictures, Cherenkov Radiation, Nuclear Reactor, Nuclear Reactor Photos

The limitations imposed by Word 2007 are described in detail in the article, but here are a few highlights:

• no support for background images (HTML or CSS)
• no support for forms
• no support for Flash, or other plugins
• no support for CSS floats
• no support for replacing bullets with images in unordered lists
• no support for CSS positioning
• no support for animated GIFs

Read More.  What do I have to say?  Buh.

So if you want to learn more about audio resume,  I'd recommend checking it out. 

When I read this, I scratched my head:

I think I've now seen everything.  And yes, I'll be downloading it tonight.  Do you want it too?  It can be found here.

“If you sign out of Gmail, you’ll notice that the storage doesn’t
increase. It used to increase with about 0.33 MB a day, but the Gmail
team forgot to add the code that manages the quota increase after 31st
December 2006.

On April 1st 2005, Gmail space increased from 1
GB to 2 GB and started to grow every day. They called this: “Infinity+1
storage plan”.

‘Storage is an important part of email, but that
doesn’t mean you should have to worry about it. To celebrate our
one-year birthday, we’re giving everyone one more gigabyte. But why
stop the party there? Our plan is to continue growing your storage
beyond 2GBs by giving you more space as we are able.’”

Hmmm. I always love that little counter sitting there counting on into the the future no matter what. Sigh. I hope it makes it back.

The story began with a simple newspaper ad mentioning their [the car dealership's] need for a “web guru with experience in search engines, design, and keywords” (yes, they were seeking a web developer exclusively through the newspaper).  Although hesitant about a job title of “web guru”, after viewing their dreadful web site, I thought I'd give them a call.  My call was greeted by a sales manager with a welcoming (although somewhat fake) attitude of excitement and interest in meeting me.  I had lots of experience from my last job (Eponym.com & Scrubshopper.com) in development, design, e-commerce, marketing, search engine optimization, and even personal experience marketing cars on Ebay– so I felt like it was a great fit and they seemed to agree.

The obvious down-side: I knew it wouldn’t be easy working for a car dealer. Surprisingly though, the initial interview process went off without much of a hitch (except for an expectation they had for me to work Saturdays and be a car salesman part-time).  Fast forward to our final meeting:  After setting up meetings and having them canceled repeatedly, I began to feel that they were playing games with me.  This infuriated me and as time wore on, things would only get worse.  After yet more delays, I finally showed up to see their offer and haggle it out with them.  They first ushered me into a cold, dark, and tiny office buried deep within the building that had a very hard, uncomfortable little chair in the corner for me to sit on.  The sales manager came in and said a little blurb about how much they needed me, then decided to go check and see where the owner's son, we'll call him John, was.  After a lengthy period of sitting in this blank, cold, room — alone with nothing to do or look at (another typical car dealer tactic), he returned alone.  “He’ll be here shortly,” he stated matter-of-factly.  After yet more fruitless minutes, John came in and we began haggling back and forth on typical employment issues and miraculously came to an agreement on most of them, but salary still hadn’t been mentioned yet.  John jogged out of the room “to grab the offer from his Dad” (who apparently made these types of decisions). 

He was gone for another good amount of time (again more delays), in which he returned with a plain piece of white paper with a number scribbled on it hot out of the copy machine.  Now I can't be certain, but I truly believe he simply wrote a number on a piece of paper and photocopied it so that it looked like it hadn't come from him (still more silly tactics).  He had gone to a 'higher authority' such that it seemed the decisions on the salary weren't within his control at all.  I won’t tell you the number written on the piece of paper, but I can honestly say it was pretty degrading.  I had the knowledge and skills to completely change the profit margins of this business, but they had just effectively ruled me out – by treating my like just another car sale.  I stared at the paper big-eyed, and using a technique they use themselves, stated: “well, that’s not really a do-able number for me.”  I let my words hang in the air which created an awkward silence, knowing one of the two men would eventually respond.  I could feel them doing their very best to make me squirm… they had done this throughout the entire process.  I wondered how often poor customers were trapped in this room bitterly seeking a decent deal on their new car, but instead feeling confused and upset by the entire experience.

After a tense minute or so, John cautiously asked me what I felt was a better number.  I was prepared with salary data from our area for similar job descriptions (courtesy of Salary.com) and offered them both copies of what I was expecting.  The median salary was considerably more than twice their offer.  “We can’t go that high at all, it’s just not feasible,” the sales manager blurted out gruffly.  I shrugged my shoulders and started packing up my things.  “Don't worry, we’ll put our heads together and come up with a new number that you might like more,” said John.  They had already lost me; there's no way I would work for a company that would treat a prospective employee like they had.  As I walked out, the sales manager promised he would call me the next day with another offer.  I knew it wouldn’t come; instead, they would wait for me to call them and I simply never would.  How could I ever trust an employer like that?  I am still in awe of the tactics they used on me. 

Two weeks later, I received an offer from Consumer Testing Labs (my current employer) that made me feel that I was a valued employee– even before I ever started the salary negotiation process.  This feeling of value contributed greatly to my accepting the job.  You may be thinking: “spoiled kid, that’s nothing compared to my horror story job offer.”  I agree, it wasn’t that bad– but it was bad enough for me to want to share my experience with any other young web developers out there seeking a new job.

So what's my point with this article?  I don't have a vendetta out against this dealership or any member of the company.  Truthfully, I just want to show young developers out there who are in the process of seeking a new job what to look out for.  I'd also like to inspire companies seeking a talented web developer to carefully review their hiring and salary negotiation processes before assuming existing methods will work for this type of specialized employee.  Web developers & programmers are a completely different type of person than you [likely] currently employ and deserve special attention.  We are information specialists and our value is not only in the skills and experience we possess, but our ability to instantly change the profit margins of your business (if sufficiently motivated and talented).  Moral of the story: invest in us and we can more than offset our salary in sales, profits, and other intangible benefits.

- Dustin Weber

One thing I have always struggled with is getting Christmas lights to turn out in my darn pictures.  Now that I think about it, I'm not sure I've EVER had any turn out well.

Lucky for me, I came across this handy guide. 

Click Here to check the article out.

The area I live in is a prime example of a good market for real-estate investment.  It has wonderful property appreciation rates, herds of renters, and a whole bunch of “flip-ready” homes.  As I mull that over and continue to learn, I stumbled across a unique investment oppurtunity pitched below:

 
If this is a totally accurate pitch, it seems like a reasonably good one.  I think I'll be spending the next few weeks looking into the Florida investing and seeing what possibilities exist.  With that being said, I'm not sure I will immediately jump at an oppurtunity like this.  I don't think I'm far enough along in the investing game to fully understand all the possible outcomes, but maybe in the near future.  Regardless, I'd like to hear your opinions on the matter.

If you'd like to check out this offer in more detail, Check It Out Here.

* Important Note: Remember to do a LOT of research before jumping into ANY investment.  Be careful.. you work hard for your money, so work hard to make sure it's a worthy investment.  In general, you should spend an equal amount of time researching an investment as you do earning the money to invest in it!

According to this source, “Déjà vu, French for 'already seen', is the illusionary feeling that one
has previously witnessed or experienced a new situation, and has been
reported to occur in up to 96 per cent of the population.”  I have always been slightly freaked out by that feeling.  I always sorta wondered about the real cause of it, but never really took the time to figure it all out. 

So that's why I found this article so interesting: 

Hearing and touch and smell often seem to intermingle in the déjà
vu experiences,” said the study subject, whose name has not been made
public. “It is almost like photographic memory, without sight obviously
… as if I was encountering a mini-recording in my head, but trying to
think 'Where have I come across that before?'.”

Continue Here if you'd like to read the whole article (and I highly reccommend it).