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Monday - 03 September 2001

It's Labor Day. Today is a US holiday so I am at home watching the termites eat the walls out of our home. Actually, I'm being a lazy S.O.B. and watching the BBC's "Ground Force" but I will be back tomorrow with all new episodes.

Oh, by the way, I had Mercury/32 installed, up and running first....behind an Axent Raptor (now Symantec) firewall and Cisco router. So you heard about it here first, as usual </pat_on_back>. You also read about the alternatives I used, any of which may make more sense for your installation. YMMV.

Aloha!

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Tuesday - 28 August 2001

What Day is This? It feels like Monday but I know it's Tuesday. Is this a good thing? I guess it is, but I'm not sure I like two Mondays in a row.

More CSS. One of the more common uses of a table is to display a bunch of thumbnail images on the screen. The following link takes you to a site which shows you how to do the same thing using Cascading Style Sheets (see it here).

2001 Top Ten Court Websites. For those two of you out there who are interested, here are the Top Ten Court Websites, as picked by Justice Served.

Ventura Superior Court, California
A beautifully designed user interface on a fast server, easy to use and information rich, this court website is our first choice. Heavy content includes online calendars, online traffic ticket payment, case index for civil and criminal areas, docket information, online Grand Jury application, E-filing, and bilingual online community outreach and customer service surveys.

Utah State Court, Utah
This is a secure site that provides everything anyone needs to file and maintain a probate case. Forms can be downloaded or completed on-line, and a full guardian's handbook and explanation of personal representative duties is available. It is also an innovative partnership with education to develop a worthy Website.

Sacramento Superior Court, California
A clean, well-organized interface makes this site a rare repeat winner of the Top 10 award. Features include a fast server, excellent online e-filing, small claims e-filing, case index and tentative rulings. We also liked their simple and clear case type definitions, excellent ADA information, grand jury reports and superb search capabilities for civil, criminal, probate and family law. The ability to file small claims cases online, alone, is worth a visit.

5th Court of Appeals, Dallas, Texas
Full text searching on both published and unpublished opinions and full searching capabilities on cases and attorney information are just some of the features provided by this impressive site. Additionally, parties may request e-mail notification when events change including case and calendar events. A tickler e-mail may be sent as a reminder. For these reasons, this site is a must have in our Top Ten.

Gwinnett County Courts, Georgia
The ability to calculate fines, look-up cases and access "quick links" to other sites of interest are some of the features that distinguish this site. The easy of use and navigation tools are worthy of note.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court Network, Oklahoma
Full case searching for Supreme and Appeals Courts, limited court documents, and information for all 77 district courts contribute to this site's selection. Access to over 2,000,000 court documents clinches the deal.

Alberta Courts, Alberta, Canada
A very easy user interface with a searchable judgments database and a province-wide display of calendars are the main selection factors for this site.

Brevard County Clerk of Courts, Florida
Juror appearance information, online excusal and postponement request, a fully searchable case management system and substantial customer information contribute to Top Ten selection for this nicely designed site.

Cobb County, Georgia
A superb calendaring system with extensive search capabilities and statistics, plus a fully searchable civil and criminal database are some of the characteristics that add this court to the list. Others include a searchable fines and restitution database, an attorney search and a very nice user interface.

Franklin County Municipal Court, Ohio
Public access to the court case management system, online traffic offense payment and a clean and simple user interface all give this site the nod for inclusion on our Top Ten list.

Aloha!

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Hump Day Wednesday - 29 August 2001

The Empire Strikes Back.

Another Daynoter posted an unflattering, tasteless, and anti-Democratic Party bumper sticker. I wonder if this is a case in which giving it a second thought would have been advantageous. I don't like to post this kind of stuff myself because it really doesn't say anything worthwhile and his bumper sticker is an ad hominem attack, not a reasoned debate on policy. But the research and the polls have shown that as long others continue to post hate-mongering B.S., we must respond, lest our silence be misunderstood by people to mean something relevant/truthful is actually being depicted (see Willie Horton).

While I have the utmost respect for my esteemed, right honourable colleague, I really wish he would refrain from such bumper sticker boosterism because it does not elevate the level of debate. I know he is above this so I can only hope that it must have slipped during a period of fatigue [either that, or not having an editor is a Bad Thing - ed.]. As it is, I apologize for having to respond in-kind. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming. Quid rides? Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur.

Speaking of Honorable Gentlemen. The head of our Budget Division has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. While there is no such thing as a "good" cancer, this is not one of them. From what I've read, and Doc Jim can correct me if I'm wrong, the survival rate is less than 50%.

I went to visit Larry in the hospital during my lunch hour yesterday and he is looking well and is in good spirits. He had surgery to remove the tumor and part of his pancreas a week ago last Friday. He will be going home soon but now has a long, hard, and I would think painful, course of chemo and/or radiation therapy ahead of him. My thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family. Good luck Larry.

Thanks for the Memory. I received the four sticks of Crucial memory last week Friday. Two 128MB sticks went into my Dell OptiPlex GX1 at work bringing it up to the maximum of 384MBs.

The two 256MB sticks went into my main Windows 2000 Pro PC at home giving it 512MB. I took the 256MB that was in the there and put that in my main Linux PC giving it 256MB. And finally, the 128MB that was in the Linux box will be a spare for who knows what. Having done all that, I don't see much of difference in raw performance. Oh well, memory is so cheap right now you might as well add more anyway.

Stats R Us. This has always been a low profile site. I don't do news groups, leaving my calling card with every post. I haven't written any books and I don't do PR. So it is always a happy surprise to see my site stats increasing every month [sheesh, with such low numbers, it would be hard to go in any other direction - ed.].

For the month of August, I had 10,635 page reads (from 18,668 requests). Obviously, no advertisers are going to be knocking on my door offering copious amount of cash, but 10K page reads from a small shack in the middle of the Pacific Ocean ain't bad. As always, I am humbled by your support.

Mahalo and Aloha!

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Thursday - 30 August 2001

Organizational Theory 101. No class on reforming organizations would be complete without reviewing a short history of organization theory. Special emphasis is given regarding the context of each theory as each reflects the societal values of their times.

But first we list the fundamental tenets of organization theory, at least as it was known in the beginning (if you see some weaknesses in the theory, join the club):

1. Organizations exist to accomplish production-related and economic goals;
2. There is one best way to organize for production, and that way can be found through systematic, scientific inquiry;
3. Production is maximized through specialization and division of labor; and
4. People and organizations act in accordance with rational economic principles.

The Factory System Context. Some would say the advent of power-driven machinery and hence, the modern factory system spawned our current concepts of economic organization (i.e., one suited for mass production). Under the factory system, success, organizational or otherwise, resulted from well-organized productions systems that kept machines running at their highest capacity and costs as low as possible. Like machines, it was thought, organizations should be structured to produce maximum output while controlling costs.

The Invisible Hand. If any two men can be said to have been the fathers of industrialization, both from Scotland by the way, Adam Smith and James Watt (whose steam engines ran the machines of industrialization) would be the two. We will focus on Smith, looking at his writings through the lens of good organization.

Smith, the "father" of modern economics, provided the intellectual under pinnings for laissez-faire capitalism (the invisible hand). In his book, The Wealth of Nations, Smith discusses optimal organization in the first chapter, appropriately titled, "Of the Division of Labor." In it, specialization of labor (number three above) is put forth as the way to maximum efficiency, and thus would reap the greatest rewards in a competitive marketplace.

The example Smith uses is a factory making pins. Here, one person draws out the wire, another straightens it, a third cuts it, a fourth puts a point on it, and on and on. This is opposed to having one person perform all of these operations. The point being that organizing people in such a way acts as a force multiplier (sometimes also referred to as synergy). That is, instead of 2 plus 2 equaling four units, it can equal 100 by the efficient organization of people. In fact, you can sum it by saying; "good organization...is as powerful a force multiplier as any machine - and far cheaper, too!"

If I have the time tomorrow, I'll introduce the paradigm of scientific management and the work of Frederick Winslow Taylor, of time-and-motion fame.

Aloha!

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Aloha Friday - 31 August 2001

It's Friday!

Moving Experience. We have to temporarily move to the back house this weekend. This was a last minute decision precipitated by the carpenters saying they could finish the front house much faster if weren't living there at the time.

So, today I am at home packing up stuff. Since we will be in the back house for about a month (or more), we have to take a lot of stuff. Stuff like our bed, pots/pans, dishes, clothes, etc.

Not my idea of a fun weekend, but I hope you have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!

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