I sometimes joke that disgruntled Chinese workers may be putting poison in our candy, food, hand gel, etc. as a sort of retribution for our greed and desire for "cheap stuff". What lengths will we go to, to get cheap stuff? Lets see:

We will put U.S. workers out of jobs so that everything from manufacturing up to design is done overseas.

We won't pollute our earth by manufacturing processes that create toxic waste but will allow import of products that produced toxic waste in the manufacturing process. It's ok though, they polluted their earth over there, not ours over here.

Oh sure I can go on but I have wasted enough hours this week. Till today I could not figure out why my Windows Home Server was not starting after shutdown. Turns out some... really funny... really cool person at the factory making my AsRock AD525PV3 motherboard thought it would be really neat to have the bios crash on startup every time after April 1st 2011. I mean how funny right! I think it is so neat to have to reset my bios every time I shut down my server. I am laughing all the time about this.

Oh good times, right?

And AsRock, what an awesome company, I mean it only took 5 or 6 days to "confirm" a problem. If I had known (like they did) others started having this problem the same day as me, I would have figured it out in about 5 or 6 seconds. Proving they are watching and learning from us though, is the lack of acknowledgement that there even is a problem. Instead, they have issued a bios fix that can be downloaded that simply "Modify code for system date". Their exact words. It does not say it fixes boot problems that are date related. In fact you would have to visit the download page and then click on the bios downloads to even know it exists. No notice to customers or anything.

I won't even torture you with excerpts from email exchanges I have had with them over the last few days. They contain words strung together in a fashion I have not seen the likes of ever. The sentences start with a valid word or combination of words, and end with a valid word or combination of words, but I think I would have trouble finding my "yellow net number from box or motherboard side bottom".

What would have given me real pleasure though, is if this board had been designed in the USA, and made in the USA by a company who employs mostly people from the USA even if it cost twice as much.

I personally would not recommend AsRock to anyone as there are still no FAQ or support articles addressing this issue, nor does support seem to have any knowledge of this problem. I feel bad for owners of this motherboard that have not yet stumbled across this bios update.

My Windows Home Server now boots but I get strange services unable to start messages after applying the bios update. I have already invested two hours investigating this problem, but all services that are said not to start in the event viewer, in fact have started.

So my cheap AsRock motheboard has cost me many lost hours in troubleshooting and repair. I am left to wonder if we are ever going to get our jobs back to the U.S.? Are we ever going to be willing to give up having lots of cheap stuff in favor of a stronger nation and higher quality products? I, for one, am for it.

I fixed my WHS (Windows Home Server) logon failure, Unknown Username or Bad Password error. I fix the problem where

My problem: A defective motherboard that does not boot unless power is disconnected, CMOS is reset (and then set back up) thus changing the MAC address of the Ethernet adapter each time. WHS was giving errors when trying to connect to the shares folder. WHS kept asking for credentials (user name and password) but would lock out the user I would enter and give a Unknown Username or Bad Password error even though the password and user name were correct. After hours and hours of Internet searching and attempting everything I could think of as well as a few solutions from the Internet. I came upon an idea: One suggestion of course was to remove and reinstall the connector software but on re-installation of my connector software the server password was not accepted as correct even though I knew it was. That is what clued me as to what to do, I remote logged into the server with a remote desktop connection (in Windows 7 right click on the server’s name and select Connect With Remote Desktop Connection). I entered the Windows Home Server password and username (Administrator), opened the Windows Home Server Console, went to settings, clicked on password and changed the Windows Home Server (WHS) password to what it already was and voila, I was logging into the shares folder from computers in the house without problems.

It would seem you must to this to sync the new Ethernet MAC address with the accepted way of accessing the server. I am sure this would also solve the problem for WHS users who change their Ethernet card for a different one, only to find they to cannot connect to shares or reinstall the connector software (an issue that a few people had but didn't seem to find a solution for).

Microsoft Windows Live is a similar or competing service to Google's cloud services. With Windows Live a user can use Microsoft Word, Excel and Power Point, Use Sky Drive to store and share files, photos and documents, and store your contact list so that is is accessible from any computer via Internet, Outlook, or downloadable Windows Live Mail client.

What really sets this apart for Google is the ablility to use your own existing email and not have to sign up for a Live email account or Hotmail email account. One less email address forced on me and you have my support.

Sorry Google (and the email account I never use but you made me create to use your service), I recommend Windows Live.

https://signup.live.com/signup.aspx?lic=1

Wisconsin democrats chicken? The best some politicians can do is dumb it down to the level of name calling again. Why do they print it or put it on TV? Oh yeah, because somebody watches it and that means there is money to be made.

I want to go on record as in support of the right to have a collective bargaining agreement. I use the term the right (in bold) to differentiate any confusion the reader may have with me being in support of any one particular, or all collective bargaining agreements.

With intelligent comments from retiring Chicago Mayer Richard Daley* and other out of touch politicians with incomes and assets in the top percentile of the population asking the rest of us to sacrifice a little bit and stop being so greedy, one is forced (I hope) too look at the situation and the facts. I see the importance of collective bargaining now, as just important as it was in the early part of the 20^th century. The Reagan administration fooled some people of the country into believing in trickle-down economics and the concept that the richest people and corporations in the U.S. will somehow provide a better life for the rest of the country. Of course the result as we can see, study, and have facts to prove, is there was large shrinking of middle class and an increase in poverty and slight increase in economic elite.

Among other thinks I know to be true, again by facts, is that collective bargaining is a kind of trickle around economics. That is to say in a non-union company will provide more fair rewards for its employees if a competitor is union. Or perhaps, dear reader, you would like a case in point: When I worked as a peon for a union company and was under a collective bargaining agreement, at contract negotiation time the non-peon employees, that is the salary employees with higher status in the company, would be curious about negotiations at least and in many instances be secretly in support of us having some gains. Simply because whatever the union employees lost, salary employee would soon lose something similar; Any gains by the union and the salary employee would gain even more. So the benefit clearly tricked around. Of course competitor companies, union or not, have to provide similar or better rewards to employees in order to draw potential employees to them and not the competition further trickling around the positive aspects of the union.

When there is talk of union busting, what is really being said is: “The working class still have too much. Let’s take food off the table, reduce health care, and further reduce the American dream (of working hard and earning what you worked for).” That might not be in itself too terrible of a statement if it were not being spoken by high paid CEO’s, major stockholders (who themselves don’t “work” and instead live off gains in their investments), and out of touch politicians… all who are again in the top percentile of the population regarding income and assets.

*Daley has stated that the United States has become a country of whiners and should sacrifice for the common good. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-03-03/news/ct-met-daley-hastert-20110303_1_parking-meter-lease-daley-whiners