General Jared Shockley General Jared Shockley

Where the Heck Have You Been??

I wanted to post something on my blog as I haven't written on here for a while. The holiday season always creates havoc for people in the IT world as this is a time when a lot of work can be done because people are gone due to the holidays. On top of that, my day job has a lot of projects in flight due to regulations and compliance.

One fun thing I got to do was record with Mr. Denny on his podcast, People Talking Tech, for an upcoming show. We spoke about compliance with my former background with Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and SEC compliance at my prior position in Microsoft and HIPAA and HI-TECH compliance at my current position. I will tweet and post out when it get's posted but check out the other great episodes on the People Talking Tech website.

I haven't forgot about this blog as I have a few topics I have been working on such as:

  • Cutting the Cable Cord
  • Expansion of My Media Market after Cutting the Cord
  • Gadget Reviews:
    • LG HBS-700 Stereo Bluetooth Headset
    • 11,000 mAh USB External Battery Packs
    • Surface RT … 3 Months Later
    • Nokia Lumia 920
  • Windows 8/RT Apps of Note
  • Windows Phone Apps of Note
  • Am I going to get a Surface Pro? (Answer will surprise you …)
  • My Home Network/Lab Experiment
  • My Experiment Moving My DNN Installation to Azure
  • Moving from WHS/Drobo to WHS/Storage Spaces
  • IT Compliance Thoughts

If you have some topics you would like me to cover, leave a comment below.

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General Jared Shockley General Jared Shockley

A Quick Thought on Father’s Day

Father's Day … so many people think this is every day of the year, especially mothers in the world. This is a generated day by most of the gifts, sundries and greeting card people. While that might be, I still love these holidays!

Mother's Day and Father's Day were a pair of my favorite holidays. I did enjoy doing things for my mom and dad, getting them gifts and cards, taking them out to meals and, later in life, taking the time to spend with them on these and other days. It feels like we don't take the time with our parents and sometimes even try to avoid our parents.

When I was younger, I wanted a computer. Everyone seemed to have this toy that allowed them to play games, write their papers, and perform interesting functions. I did a lot of research and pulled information from my friends. In the end, I determined that I wanted to get a Commodore 64 as many of my friends have one. I PTSOPed the information and presented it to my father (PTSOP = Put That Stuff On Paper, one of his favorite sayings.). He read it all and we ended up going to Safeway … yes, Safeway … and purchased the system. My mother didn't even know that he was doing this. Little did both of them know where it could take me.

Now, I sit almost 30 years later writing this blog entry into OneNote 2010 on my ASUS EP121 tablet running Windows 8 RP. I am listening to a podcast on my Windows Phone and getting ready to head home and install Windows Server 2012 RC on my test lab to install SCCM2012 as well. I have worked as a Operations Manager at Microsoft and currently am Director of IT for a medical company. That initial purchase of a Commodore 64 has lead to my love of technology and given me a career. I encourage all parents, not just fathers, to support your children in their dreams. Support those dreams and encourage their growth and learning, even if it is not an area you understand.

I want to wrap up this post as an homage to my father. He passed on from this world in April of 2010 and I miss him each and every day. He supported me in a lot of things and in a lot of ways. He not only was there when I needed him, he was my mentor in a lot of ways. I continue to model myself in a lot of ways from his advice, both in my personal and professional lives. I have been told by family and friends that I am my father's son and I can't think of a better thing to be called. Thanks Dad and I miss you.

Jared

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General Jared Shockley General Jared Shockley

Welcome to my Launch

Welcome to my new blog, Jared on Tech. The things I will be talking about are technology, gadgets, services and how people and businesses can use them. If you know me personally, you know that these things are a big part of my life today and into my future. Postings will range from a quick thought to fully thought out, researched articles to guest postings by friends on topics I think you will enjoy. I am also setting up a specific Twitter account, http://twitter.com/jaredontech, to talk about these posts and other posts I find on the internet that would be of use to like-minded people.

I will be enabling comments on my site but they will be moderated. I hope to approve all comments but will be deleting or modifying comments that I feel are offensive to the general public (not offensive to me specifically), to be of a spam nature, or of a flame nature. I want to encourage thoughtful discussion and interactions with people coming to my blog but I also will not allow it to be a platform for "diarrhea mouth syndrome".

Please head on over to my bio page to learn a bit more about me and my background. A few things about my writing style and my biases:

  1. My writing style is pretty upfront. I will be using citations of other sites to show some of the details that I have found or include screenshots of my own findings. At other times, the writing will be my opinion and viewpoint.
  2. I worked at Microsoft and feel their solutions are some of the better ones out there. They are not the only ones and in some cases, not the best ones.
  3. Google is the ultimate evil. As I found online, "if you're not paying for something, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold." 1 Google's intent is to deliver advertising to you as they state that "We generate revenue primarily by delivering relevant, cost-effective online advertising." 2 in their 10K filing with the SEC. I do not use Google tools as much as I can and block their tools as much as possible.
  4. Apple makes wonderful devices and an okay operating system. That said, I personally do not want to pay extra for their devices nor get locked into their world (iTunes, iThis, iThat). I feel they are way behind in thinking about certain aspects including security and compatibility with other systems. If you do not do it their way, you are not allowed to do it.

One thing I will be setting up is my blog entries available through RSS fully. One thing I hate on other blogs is when they only give you the "summary" via RSS making you visit their site. I understand they are trying to make their money via site advertising but it is very annoying. I would love to have you visit my site to drive my possible income, but this is not a primary job for me. If that ever changes, I will let everyone know but that will never change. I might include ads in the feed but I will be transparent with you about it. One area for income I will be using is being an Amazon Affiliate. Thank goodness I live in Washington, so it will never go away for me. If I list items that you are interested in and want to purchase from Amazon, please use my links to get me what little from them in return.

Thanks for coming to this new site and I hope you get as much from it as I get from other very informative sites.

Jared

Notes/Citations

1 - http://lifehacker.com/5697167/if-youre-not-paying-for-it-youre-the-product - Article on LifeHacker by Jason Fitzpatrick calling out the phrase used by a MetaFilter user by the username blue_beetle.

2 - http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312512025336/d260164d10k.htm In the Business section of the 10-K filing by Google, Inc. describing it's primary revenue source.

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