From the Doghouse
A look at dogs having fun
Poser Gallery
My gallery of pictures I’ve created in Poser
My Science Fiction and Fantasy stories
Stories I’ve written
Nature by Carol
A look at the less technical side of life
OTR Mobile, A Review
OTR Mobile is not the Internet solution you’re looking for and whatever you do, don’t expect any money back from them. At $60 a month, OTR Mobile seemed like a no brainer decision. they offered me as much as 10 mps, almost 7 times than what my archaic ADSL service...
How To Drive Customers Away, Why I’m Done With Netgear
Over the years I've used a number of Netgear modems, routers and switchers but this weekend I received what will be my last Netgear product. It's a simple Wi-Fi range extender and probably works well but Netgear's attempt at customer retention is not acceptable....
Whatever Happened To Compromise And Acceptance?
I have no mouth and must scream is a short story by Harlen Ellison. Unfortunately it also very accurately sums up my feelings on American politics. I’ll confess to avoiding Twitter and Facebook. I have my website but I’ve accepted that the stats on my website don't...
The SainSmart 3018 PROVer CNC Router, A Review
Given the number of posts I've made on 3D printers, it's safe to assume that I feel I've mastered the basic techniques. Still you always wonder if the grass is greener on the other side. In my case, thanks in part to the Covid blues and Amazon's Prime day I ended up...
Want To Be A Great Writer? You Need Great Characters
Why this topic? Why now? Perhaps an explanation is in order. Recently I had to send a white paper I had written several years ago to a colleague having similar problems. Prior to sending it, I took the time to read it and almost spent the rest of the day rewriting it....
Why All The Negative Political Ads? Are Politicians Afraid Of A Position?
I just finished exercising my political rights by voting against all the candidates so far from my own political views that I had no choice but to vote for their opposition. Looking back on my experience, I realize every vote I made was for the lessor evil. I did my...
Random Posts
BeginningAs my age increases I’m starting to think that I’m wasting a huge opportunity to be a voice in this world. On the other hand, maybe it’s just that the current selection of video games is boring and I’ve always wanted to be part of the Internet. I like challenges, I enjoy accomplishing difficult accomplishments […]
Spam and Scams Filling My Email – Sound Familiar?One look at my investment portfolio and you know my ability to predict the future is seriously flawed. This trend gives me hope I’m wrong but if history is any guide, no one will be using email 10 years from now. Impossible you say? Before the advent of robocallers and phone soliciters, we looked forward […]
Customer Retention, A Forgotten Concept Or Counting On Our LazinessI just finished deleting Opinionbypen. No, not this version of my blog obviously. I’m talking about the version hosted at GoDaddy. This year when my renewal rolled around, GoDaddy rewarded my tenure with a rate increase. Having been with then for five years, they could have rewarded my customer loyalty with a discount. Instead they […]
Random Posts
Too Good For Your Career?When you design a game you have two classes of gamers that you have to consider, those that are content doing the same thing over and over to get a high score and those that want new challenges, new levels, and new areas to explore. If people don’t find what they want in your game, […]
3D Artwork Using Poser and Daz3DYou’ve read my post on Poser Debut or maybe you’ve enjoyed a few of the pictures I’ve created and wondered just how hard can this be. I’m not going to make this a tutorial but I will take you through a few of the scenes to let you see just what is involved in making […]
Why Don’t I Have Any Visitors To My Website, Do I Have Bad SEO?When I started Opinion by Pen, I knew I was posed for fame, fortune and wealth. All I had to do was get my website established, put some advertising up and the money would start rolling in. Only two things stood in my way. I had no advertising on my website and I had no […]
Random Posts
Married To An Engineer, The Christmas Dinner DilemmaI just discovered that I’ll be having steak for Christmas dinner instead of the ham everyone else will be having. Truthfully, I don’t see this as a bad thing but I hate to see this happen simply because my wife and I don’t seem to communicate on the meaning of like and don’t like. My […]
Engineers From Technicians, A PerspectiveIn electronics you have two classes of knowledge experts, Engineers and Technicians. I’m ignoring the programmers for the moment because they only complicate this discussion. The distinction between the two classes can become very blurred but Engineers are expected to create designs, while Technicians implement and troubleshoot those designs. At a practical level, the difference […]
Website Data For My Udacity Statistics CourseA few weeks ago I did a post, “Probability, Statistics and Udacity”. Udacity read the post, tweeted it and posted a link on their site. The increase in traffic to my site was astounding. This provided a whole new audience and a great opportunity to study the statistics generated by Udacity linking my site. Udacity’s […]
From the Doghouse -It’s all about them
A look at dogs having fun!
Short Stories
With posts like these, ever wonder what kind of fiction I would write?
Random Posts
An Easter Cactus FlowerNo matter how I considered it, I couldn’t come up with an appropriate post for Easter. To me, Easter announces the presence of spring and spending time with family. More than anything else it’s a time for relaxation. It was my cactus that gave me the inspiration for today’s post. …
Comments on Udacity vs. CollegesToday I got to read an interesting article by David Youngberg , “Why Online Education Won’t Replace College—Yet ” He gives five points to support his beliefs and even took CS101 from Udacity as research. I think he’s very right in his main assumption but he certainly picked five very …
Death By PowerPoint, Together We Can Prevent This Dreadful DiseaseWe’ve all heard the term, Death by PowerPoint. If you work in an office environment, odds are you’ve come to hate PowerPoint presentations. Surprisingly, I’m not going to attribute this to Microsoft. No, the blame for this hatred lies solely with us, the creators of the slide deck. I’m going to …
Teamwork, A Term Misunderstood By CongressApparently I lied when I said I was going to skip Congress as a topic. This morning my wife told me how Congress was congratulating themselves on coming up with a deal at the last minute and I was reminded of the six phases of a project. 1. Enthusiasm – …
Emotional Content as a Communication ProtocolI’m writing this post for all the other bewildered engineers out there. You’re welcome to read on if you’re not an engineer but I’m not sure what you’ll glean from it. If you’re familiar with communication theory you’ve already been introduced to the Nyquist theorem and understand that the maximum …