American Dream -- Milton Academy style via Governor Deval Patrick

Milton Academy -- Deval Patrick

Deval Patrick's road to first black governor of Massacusetts.

Deval and his good friend President Obama both offered similar hopes of optimism and hopefullness

many people were hungry for. Many people felt that changes would bring a brighter day for every one, not just the rich and greedy.

Deval's back ground is interesting. He graduated from Milton Academy and Harvard law. He became a top federal civil-rights enforcement officer in the Clinton administration and cheif counsel for Coka-Cola.

Deval grew up in Chicago (poor) and earned a scholarship to prestigious prep school Milton academy. He went on to Harvard and graduated from Harvard law school. He was a private attorney in Boston, specailizing in poverty law and civil rights work. In 1994 President Clinton named him assistant attorney general for civil rights. Deval has lived in Milton Ma, but his residence was reported up for sale, speculating a move to Washington with President Obama.

Deval made his in roads as an attorney working for Stephen Rienhard U.S. court of appeals as a clerk. In Berkshire county, Mark Riehard is a polical science professor at Williams College,who helped Deval get the prestigious clerkship. Deval has built a multi-million dollar second home in Richmond Berkshire county.

Back when Deval started his campain for Governor of Massachussetts, Judge Rienhart helped

get the campain off the ground and was a person of great influence and affect on Deval's life and career.

One thing that impressed me about Deval, he was not freightened or overwhelmed that he would not fit in among youth of power and privilege at Milton academy. He made the effort to reached out to others and learned that other kids were just as frieghtened as he was. There was a sense of community among adults and teachers at Milton academy where others took interest in helping you along. I also learned that there is a strong minority presence at the academy, which must have been helpful as well.

By all accounts Deval has lived the American dream. Deval ran for governor on the premise of keeping the American dream alive. In order for people to realize the American dream, the USA must have a strong economy. The education system in the USA must improve and health care should be affordable. Deval has just released a new intitutive to help small businesses acquire capital, which hopefully will lead to job creation.

Deval is an inspirtion for all based on his hard work and success. His record as governor of Massachussetts is another question. My hope is there will be brighter days ahead for Massachussetts and USA.

I am heading to Milton Academy this week end to officaite a football game.  I wonder if I will run into any future leaders and hope to see some interesting sites.

Windows 7 upgrade and review

Windows 7 upgrade:

If you are currently running Windows Vista you should be able to upgrade to Window 7 with out a problem. Windows 7 is designed to run on the same hardware as Windows Vista which is good news.

Windows 7 key feature are:  the improved performance resulting in a faster and more stable operating system.  Newer systems will run Windows 7 fine, but on older systems, you should review the hardware requirements below.

The system requirements for Windows 7 are as follows: 1 GHZ or faster processor, 1GB RAM 32 bit, 2 GB RAM 64 bit, 16 GB hard drive space and a graphics card compatible with Direct X 9. You can also run Windows 7 upgrade advisor at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/upgrade-advisor.aspx

The Windows upgrade advisor will let you know what hardware and software will work with Windows 7, all others you will have to find and load the appropriate drivers. Microsoft does have some new security features available in security essentials.  http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

The early reviews on Windows 7 are good. It’s faster, better looking user interface and has touch screen capability.  I will provide further overviews and review once I install.

Manage Success -- a New England tradition

What can we learn from other’s success?

The Story of a Hall of Fame Coach Bill Bellchick

As the story goes, Bill got his love of football from his father Steve. Steve an immigrant got to college on a football scholarship. As a player Steve realized he would some day like to coach.  Steve loved to break down film, analyze play principles, various formations, and scout opponents for hours.  By the age of ten, Steve’s son, young Bill (being around his father) would spend hours absorbing every fact, thought, and perspective.   The key is identifying and developing a love for what you do.

Bill’s early guiding principles were order and patterns through football.  Bill would play football at prestigious Andover Academy and receive a football scholarship as well.  His major in college was economics; this would dictate how his teams would manage the salary cap, and how he would value his players. A key piece to building any successful business is, providing a great product at a great price.  The final result would be the molding of a championship team, the New England Patriots. The NE Patriots championship teams of the 90’s lacked super stars, but had many great team players. Many of these players performed above expectations, providing great value, and contributed to one of the most successful teams in NFL history.  Through tradition, principles learned: hard work, thriftiness, and moral responsibility, Bill and Patriots were able to build a dynasty that many believed was impossible.

IT security breaches what are the damages?

After many well publicized security breaches at large companies, the damage and resulting aftermath is costly and disturbing. Over the last 12 months security breaches have become a large problem for many companies. You can attribute attacks to economic conditions and to new hacking techniques with wide range objectives.

According to studies, the numbers of security breaches are the same as last year, but the damage is more severe. The average cost on a security breach is $85k, lost business, security repair.

Based on recommendation from FBI and Homeland Security Assessment:

Companies need to adhere to rigorous attention to security and the implementation of security technology such as Firewalls, Anti-Virus solutions, and intrusion detection systems.

Implementing a password security policy is key. Help desk support should be trained on how to verify users identity prior to releasing passwords; especially over the phone. 

Setting up self automated password reset technology can be very useful in managing users’ password. Taking these steps can minimize damages from a security breach.