March 1, 2004

           It’s kind of lonely at the top. That remark is the result of a discovery that the database used by the State of Florida is not normalized. And nowhere near as developed as “ours". The further inquiries into a web site business continue, and I have contacted Marlene (friend of Tony & Rhonda) for some pricings. (This refers to asking around for prices real people paid to get their Internet business running, not the $499 “Web Page” specials advertised on telephone poles. It is difficult to get an answer due to "layering" of the required protocols.) My research on Internet business took me way off base today.

           Database info, I know you were just waiting. The swing is right back to the un-normalized structure developed by Gus. Nobody wants to criticize. Yet, I know Gus is very aware of the problem. (This confusing paragraph refers to politics, not database. My small, slick database is universally useful, but my predecessor, Gus, designed a spidery system for purchases. Certain people are insisting that before my system is adopted, it must be integrated with the other. This would bog my work down to their level, but it would prevent them from admitting they have a bad system.) It seems they want to migrate my little set of [normalized] tables onto the SQL server first, let me be the sacrifice. Has anyone here made a commitment? Its politics but any change to Gus’s system is a sacred no-no, I am the only one stressing his data tables have to be re-done.

           [Author’s note 2022: this photo was added to give this page more color. It shows Paris Hilton from back when she was a blonde. By 2022 she is less than half as blonde and more than double the thigh size.]

           Paul is talking about putting some MicroSoft engine on my desktop, every method of declaring me the dbo (database owner) doesn’t work with the backend on the SQL server. So it may be up to me to figure out how these things interface, and if so, that could get expensive one way or the other. Truly, I would like to do that, but they are hinting of linking EmpMaster and Forefront [two local applications with many unused features]. For now, I say there ain’t nobody that smart, and if there is ask him, what he’s doing in Florida. The goal here seems to be to get the sites doing their own ordering. Using Gus’s 47 tables and hieroglyphic queries.
           Investigating deeper into Internet business, I see that most web based businesses (as opposed to business which merely has an information page) took over where mail-order left off. Mostly drop shippers, mostly crooks selling drop ship dreams. Tom Bosely plugs SMC, Specialty Merchandise Corporation, saying “get started” for $25.00. Yes, get started losing your money, because other sources confirm you will spend close to $3,000 before you can sell anything. More rumor says that the site you get can only sell things from the SMC catalog.

           [Author's note 2021: I smelled a rat alright, it turns out SMC was a scam. One of the first on-line operations to overcharge you for a cut and past Web Page, and when you quit because of no sales, they continued to deduct monthly fees from your bank account. I have never put any banking information on line, I saw that one coming. When I want to know my balance, I look it up on the office computer, it has all potential Internet ports plugged with crazy glue.]

           There seem to be two ways to go. One is a customized site with all kinds of bells and whistles. The other is join something called an “Internet Mall”, where all the pages have a generic look. In the first case, they say customized sites exist by the thousands, and just sit there. Nobody lands on them except by mistake, and the only people who made money were the developers. The mall idea is that people arrive there ready to buy, but competition is fierce and profits trimmed to the marrow.
           [To relax] I read about the Plain of Jars, that huge field in North Vietnam full of hollow stones they think were some religion. It's some big deal locally, but you can have it.

           [Author's note 2020: Posts like this that read in a "clipped" fashion invariably are redacted from calendar scribbles. There is no intent to sound technical, rather that is the material that usually got recorded.]