I just started a new blog called "A Month in Venice" which is my attempt to use my blog in order to help pay for a month long stay in Venice, Italy. The premise of the blog is to provide valuable content for international travelers and those aiming to go to Northern Italy. There is something about that city that really attracts me as I find myself to be at peace when I am in that city. It is weird that I find the city peaceful but I find the lack of automobile traffic to be quite refreshing. Besides the city is just plain beautiful and anyone who does not love that city is just plain nuts in my book.

The blog is really just starting out and I am still working out some of the kinks but hopefully most will find the content to be useful.

After many months I have discovered that my site is showing up in highly irrevelant search results on some of the major search engines such as Google, MSN and Yahoo. It turns out that many webmasters use a "gray hat" technique of placing their trackback urls on unsuspecting blogs such as mine. Well I am absoulutely sick of this and have eliminated all of my comments so I can get rid of all the irrevelant trackbacks and I can obtain more targeted search results for my particular niche. I also believe I may obtain a higher Google PageRank as well by doing this as I am sure the Google search algo takes into account the type of sites that i am linking to as well.

For those that placed comments on my blog I thank you for doing so but I am now no longer going to be accepting comments as this seems to also open the door to the trackback spam problem. i should upgrade my blog so that this will not happen but I just do not have the time to do so. If you wish to comment on something that I stated in my blog feel free to email me. You can do so by actually going to my blog and there you will see a little icon that looks like a letter. Click on this and it should bring up your email client with my email address. I do not want to post my email address here on this blog to avoid yet another type of spam.

I have just spent a good hour of my day reading through some of the posts made by the Rich Minx. For those that do not know who she is, she is a freelance journalist who is working in New York. What amazed me most was how similiar we both were in how we saw things in life. This is amazing to me since she grew up in New Zealand and I grew up in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota so it is not like we have shared past experiences.

If you are interested in a good money blog then please go over and read the Rich Minx a.k.a. Shona Riddell. I find her writing to be most compelling and entertaining. As a bonus she is willing to give site reviews if you have a somewhat financial related website for her to review. It is rare that I find a blog on saving and making money to be so entertaining so she should be commended by going the extra mile with her website and taking the risk of putting her personality into her writing. Oh gosh a blogger with a personality who knew they even existed! Just kidding.

Please go read and find out how to save and make money through this great resource.

It turns out that not everyone is afraid to put their own lives at risk in order to catch a criminal. The account of how Chris Sacca's attempt to write down the license plate of a drive by shooter proves what we all can do as citizens. I am always amazed by those that are so self sacrificing in their effort to do good. This proves that not everyone out there is a bad person and there are those that truly want to help. It is quite inspiring to be frank and it should motivate us all to do the same. Imagine what our streets would be like if we all stood up against the thugs out there that choose to use terror and other techniques in order to intimidate the rest of us.

Read the original blog post here:

http://www.whatisleft.org/lookie_here/2007/06/sigh.html

I would also like to thank Robert Scoble for bringing this account to my attention through his blog. This again proves that community driven news can be truly beneifical for the society at large. Of course there is many crappy blogs out there, perhaps many consider mine to be in that category because I choose to keep my private life private. However I am sure that if I witnessed something like a shooting I would record my experience down and share it with as many people as I could.

I did not think I would be so enthralled by a blog entry but I have to say that this account is truly gripping reading, mostly because it is from a "real person" and not some faceless newspaper reporter.

Today I am amazed!

I recently came across some really profound words of wisdom that I want to share with everyone. Here it goes:

"Worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum."

Again sorry for the personal post I just wanted to jot that down somewehere I knew I would never lose it.

This is a personal rant that I am just expressing on my blog sorry...for those that like technical content just tune me out.

I have grown up much in this past year. I have learned something probably many have already learned in your life (hey sometimes I am a slow learner) that is the ability to let go. I mean let go of things and possesions that add no mean to my life. Rather I have found that "downsizing" my life has made me more free then I thought I could ever be. It is fantastic knowing that I can just pick up and go when ever I want with out too many things to weigh me down.

Also on a personal note I have been able to let those that have offended me in the past to no longer hinder my future. That is to say that I do not hold grudges any more. Actually I have learned this a couple of years ago but I just get better at it with each passing day. Kaizen! That is Japenese for constant daily improvement.

Letting go makes one really free. It is the true freedom that many seek in their lives and do not know about it!

Sorry for this short non technical post...back to normal programmng folks!

During your course delievery a student asks the question "Why do I need to learn this?" In this case what is the best choice for you as the instructor to take?

A. Explain that  you were hired by their manager to train them on this topic and that he/she believes that this ie very important.

B. Explain the benefits of learning this material and the potential payoffs for their career and to their personal lives

C. Explain that all of this material will make sense once they start to do the task on the job. It will only make much more sense at that point in their job.

D. Review the course objectives of the section you are working on and make sure each student can understand them.

The answer to this question is in the comments.

To all my readers,

I want to apologize for missing a day of sample test questions. I kind of made a promise to myself and to my readers that this is something I would do every day as an aid for those studying for these exams. Unfortuantely I missed one day due to a  hectic schedule but I do plan on making up for it by creating a batch of sample test questions that are not only more compelling but also more than just one per day. Hopefully I can complete that task tomorrow so I can take Sunday off as I need to go out of town on that day.

Again my apologies.

Which of the following methods listed below uses roles to establish to determine who has access permissions to the specified resources?

A. DAC

B. RBAC

C. MAC

D. None of the above

The answer to this question is in the comments.

The implementation and planning phases of every project usually involve tradeoffs between several approaches to project execution. These trade-offs are usually made between ______________

A. Scope, issues and risks

B. Cost, schedule and quality

C. Risk, schedule and quality

D. Design, enigineering and implmentation

E. Overhead, direct cost and expense

The answer is contained in the comments

Which of the following access control systems listed below allows the owner of a resource to establish access permissions to that resource?

A. DAC

B. MAC

C. RBAC

D. None of the above.

The answer to this question is in the comments.

Which two methods, of the choices given, are valid for developing task duration estimates? (Choose only two)

A. Value engineering

B. Bottoms-up estimating

C. Historical data

D. Expert judgement

E. Stochastic estimating

The answer for this question is in the comments.

What is generally considered the main objective of analyzing the course material and learner information?

A. To adjust and match the course materials to fit the learner's needs

B. To check for inaccurate or out of date material

C. To create a report for the instructional designer

D. To become familiar with the course materials

The answer to this question will be in the comments.

What is generally considered the core function of the project manager?

A. Client interface

B. Systems design

C. Project integration

D. Quality assurance

E. Meeting coordinator

The answer to this question is in the comments.

If an instructor delievers the same course multiple times and each time experiences the same failure, what competency is this insructor failing to address properly?

A. Evaluate course delievery

B. Analyze course material and instruction

C. Evaluate learner performance

D. Use media effectively

Answer will be supplied in the comments.

Well after much thought I have come to the conclusion that I need to blog more often. I am simply just not using this medium effectively enough. So I have thought about creating a series that I can sink my teeth into. I am thinking about writing sample test questions to some of the more popular certifications out there such as Security+, Project+ and some of the new updated Microsoft .Net 2.0 certs for the MCPD Enterprise Application Developer. The reason is that I am studying for all of those certifications and this will help me study and hopefully down the road help those that wish to take these tests as well.

So hopefully later today I will have written some of the sample test questions and then start posting them on a daily basis, or as often as I humanly can so that this blog will become more of a resource like I intended it to be. Look in the near future for these questions as I do plan on posting them quite soon.