joeware - never stop exploring... :)

New Kindle Fire’s available plus the "original" version (though faster) has been marked down to $159.

7" Original but faster version – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0083Q04IQ/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0083Q04IQ&linkCode=as2&tag=wwwjoewarenet-20

7" HD – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GGCAVM/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B008GGCAVM&linkCode=as2&tag=wwwjoewarenet-20

8.9" HD – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GFRB9E/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B008GFRB9E&linkCode=as2&tag=wwwjoewarenet-20

8.9" HD with 4G – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GFRBBW/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B008GFRBBW&linkCode=as2&tag=wwwjoewarenet-20

When I pulled up Amazon today to go check on the price of something I saw the following announcement… Go Amazon, Go Bezos! I loved this, especially the bolded part… Logic based assistance… Who knew?

So, for people who’ve been with us as little as three years, we’re offering to pre-pay 95% of the cost of courses such as aircraft mechanics, computer-aided design, machine tool technologies, medical lab technologies, nursing, and many other fields.

The program is unusual. Unlike traditional tuition reimbursement programs, we exclusively fund education only in areas that are well-paying and in high demand according to sources like the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and we fund those areas regardless of whether those skills are relevant to a career at Amazon.

I pulled this from http://www.amazon.com

Dear Customers,

At Amazon, we like to pioneer, we like to invent, and we’re not willing to do things the normal way if we can figure out a better way.

One area where we’ve seen particular success is our fulfillment center network. Sustained innovation inside our fulfillment centers has driven improved reliability, accuracy, and speed of delivery, as well as productivity and safety. Our high productivity allows us to pay our fulfillment center employees 30% more than traditional physical retail store employees while still offering customers the lowest prices. Our work on safety practices has been so effective that it’s statistically safer to work in an Amazon fulfillment center than in a traditional department store.

Our bias for reinvention extends into our recruiting teams. For most of the year, our full-time fulfillment center employees can keep up with customer demand. But during the holiday gift-giving season, our peak needs temporarily double, and we employ many more people. Our seasonal recruiting program called CamperForce — where RVers combine work with camping — has been very successful and much written about in the media. And our military veteran recruiting program effectively helps vets transition into the civilian workforce. Amazon was recently named the #1 Top Military Friendly Employer by G.I. Jobs Magazine.

Those are just a few examples, and innovation doesn’t stop. Today, we’re announcing our newest innovation — one we’re especially excited about — the Amazon Career Choice Program.

›Learn more about the Amazon Career Choice Program

Many of our fulfillment center employees will choose to build their careers at Amazon. For others, a job at Amazon might be a step towards a career in another field. We want to make it easier for employees to make that choice and pursue their aspirations. It can be difficult in this economy to have the flexibility and financial resources to teach yourself new skills. So, for people who’ve been with us as little as three years, we’re offering to pre-pay 95% of the cost of courses such as aircraft mechanics, computer-aided design, machine tool technologies, medical lab technologies, nursing, and many other fields.

The program is unusual. Unlike traditional tuition reimbursement programs, we exclusively fund education only in areas that are well-paying and in high demand according to sources like the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and we fund those areas regardless of whether those skills are relevant to a career at Amazon.

Like many of our innovations at Amazon, the Career Choice Program is an experiment. We’re excited about it and hope it will pay big dividends for some of our employees. This is one innovation that we hope other companies in this economy will copy.

Thanks for being a customer,

Jeff Bezos
Founder & CEO

So previously (http://blog.joeware.net/2012/07/05/2540/) I mentioned the idea of an AD Wiki. I had quite a bit of feedback in the comments and offline through email on the idea with some strong points to use the Technet Wiki and some strong points on YES DO IT! No other options came up so it came down, for me, to whether I felt the Technet Wiki was what I visualized I thought I/we needed or not.

After looking over the Technet Wiki pretty closely and thinking through the whole thing and then just plain listening to my gut, I have decided that putting up an AD Wiki is something that I am going to do. I just didn’t feel good about whether any kind of censorship of opinions and/or third party vendors might come up in Technet and based on some of the guidelines I saw there I don’t think they would take kindly to, for example, articles on the comparison of OpenLDAP to Active Directory or ADAM or detailed instructions on tying MIT Kerberos to AD or vice versa or documentation on how to set up VMWARE to host DCs if someone wants to write it up and others think it would be good to have and see. I.E. This isn’t going to just be a wiki about AD in a homogeneous Microsoft environment, but AD in the real world where we live.

I really really really want to see contributions from a wide range of people and sources. If your writing skills aren’t the best, don’t worry about it, this is about consolidating and sharing information, not showing who can word smith better than others. If someone else reads what you wrote and thinks there is a better way to say it, they can update it. If you have ideas on what you want to see but can’t speak to it, put in stubs and people who see the stubs who have more info and want to write will be able to take those stubs and suggestions and perhaps write something.  These are things that make up the beauty of Wiki.

And yes, I will want to see opinions because I think people like seeing opinions along with hard facts. Sometimes opinions and "feelings" precede and possibly drive research that provides hard facts later. I do think there should be a special tag that indicates that something is opinion where opinion is when you state something you feel without verified sources you can cite. 

I am even open to vendors writing up articles about their utilities etc. I don’t want to see ads, but real life examples and how-tos would be nice. When someone goes looking for how-to do X, seeing a page talking about it with related pages on native methods based on a multiple scripts, tools, and products you can purchase would be a good thing.

Anyway, it will take me a little bit to set it up but I will announce its availability here and likely places like the ActiveDir.Org list, etc.

    joe