I have been a Yahoo! email and IM user since, well, forever. After enduring almost 3 months of delays in email delivery, slow GUI performance, and timeouts, I have to look elsewhere. My decision was confirmed after seeing the Yahoo exec's quoted comments to employees that Yahoo! mail customers would have to have their privates kicked in order to leave.
Farewell Yahoo! Hello Google!
Oh, and for those that want to do this...Google has a feature under Settings/Accounts/Check mail from other acounts that will pull in all mail from your Yahoo inbox. It does not support Yahoo IMAP folders. What I am doing is getting the inbox first, then moving each Yahoo folder one by one into the Yahoo inbox, and then changing the label that Google uses to mark the message.
Contacts can be imported by exporting them as vcards from Yahoo.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Take Pitty On Your State Insurance Commissioner
I watched President Obama talk today about administrative remedies that his administration is going to make so that he can make good on his promise of "if I (oops, I mean you) like your insurance plan, you can keep your insurance plan, period."
Either Mr. Obama knows nothing about how insurance companies do their business, or, he knows all too well...
Insurance regulation falls within the purview of state government, since it is not an enumerated power of the United States Constitution. This means that the insurance companies have to re-apply to the state insurance boards where they sell products, to every state where they sell products, and ask for approval to sell the old products. And most likely, these will not be under the same rates. I have never seen this process take shorter than months (having been in the insurance industry).
But, Mr. Obama has done his part. Blame for losing your plan can now be placed on either the state insurance commissioners or the insurance companies if they decided not to re-instate products for which cannot be sold to new customers (a big waste of time and money), or both.
Problem solved and promise kept!
Either Mr. Obama knows nothing about how insurance companies do their business, or, he knows all too well...
Insurance regulation falls within the purview of state government, since it is not an enumerated power of the United States Constitution. This means that the insurance companies have to re-apply to the state insurance boards where they sell products, to every state where they sell products, and ask for approval to sell the old products. And most likely, these will not be under the same rates. I have never seen this process take shorter than months (having been in the insurance industry).
But, Mr. Obama has done his part. Blame for losing your plan can now be placed on either the state insurance commissioners or the insurance companies if they decided not to re-instate products for which cannot be sold to new customers (a big waste of time and money), or both.
Problem solved and promise kept!
Monday, December 2, 2013
USB Serial Port Adapter and Other USB Problems on Mavericks (OSX 10.9)
I upgraded to Mavericks yesterday and I have to say it went smoothly, except for the Moschip-based 7720 USB to serial port adapter I use to debug AVR embedded projects. It worked fine on Snow Leopard.
I also noticed several complaints for these kinds of devices (not just Moschip based devices) on Mavericks. So, beware...
From my syslog, the following errors were noted:
So I did what I usually do in these cases. I booted up Linux on Virtualbox and the serial port adapter works fine.
Finally, I have a home-built USBasp programmer that I use for hobby micro-controller projects with Atmel chips. I had this device plugged into a powered Belkin USB hub and under Snow Leopard, it worked fine. Since upgrading to Mavericks, the only way I can get it to work is to plug it directly into my Macbook. Hmph...I don't know why this is, yet.
I also noticed several complaints for these kinds of devices (not just Moschip based devices) on Mavericks. So, beware...
From my syslog, the following errors were noted:
Dec 2 06:51:03 charles-benedicts-macbook.local com.apple.kextd[12]: WARNING - Invalid signature -67062 0xFFFFFFFFFFFEFA0A for kext "/System/Library/Extensions/MCS7720Driver.kext"
Dec 2 06:51:03 charles-benedicts-macbook.local com.apple.kextd[12]: Can't load /System/Library/Extensions/MCS7720Driver.kext - no code for running kernel's architecture.
Dec 2 06:51:03 charles-benedicts-macbook.local com.apple.kextd[12]: Load com.MosChip.driver.MCS7720Driver failed; removing personalities from kernel.
I am not sure whether the "no code" error is because the signature was invalid or whether the driver must be recompiled for 10.9.
Further research yields the following:
Further research yields the following:
charles-benedicts-macbook:Extensions chuck_benedict$ sudo kextutil -b kextload -t ./MCS7720Driver.kext
Notice: /System/Library/Extensions/MCS7720Driver.kext has debug properties set.
Diagnostics for /System/Library/Extensions/MCS7720Driver.kext:
Warnings:
Executable does not contain code for architecture:
x86_64
Code Signing Failure: not code signed
Warnings:
Executable does not contain code for architecture:
x86_64
WARNING - Invalid signature -67062 0xFFFFFFFFFFFEFA0A for kext "/System/Library/Extensions/MCS7720Driver.kext"
Can't load /System/Library/Extensions/MCS7720Driver.kext - no code for running kernel's architecture.
So I did what I usually do in these cases. I booted up Linux on Virtualbox and the serial port adapter works fine.
Finally, I have a home-built USBasp programmer that I use for hobby micro-controller projects with Atmel chips. I had this device plugged into a powered Belkin USB hub and under Snow Leopard, it worked fine. Since upgrading to Mavericks, the only way I can get it to work is to plug it directly into my Macbook. Hmph...I don't know why this is, yet.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Republican Stategery
In the Wall Street Journal this morning (and in many news casts), the reports are all about law makers' desires to fix the Affordable Care Act.
Did I miss something? Republican strategic ineptness is astounding.
The Republicans practically committed political suicide "shutting down" the federal government. It is truly amazing to me that so many people got so worked up over not being able to go to the park. The federal park system did seem like the only government program affected by the "Great Shutdown of 2013." In any case, Republicans went to the mat over shutting down the federal government over a desire to repeal or change the Affordable Care Act. It was laudable but foolish. Democrats would not budge on changing it, period.
Now the Obama administration and Democrats generally claim ignorance to the effect of millions of people losing their ability to renew plans in the individual insurance marketplace. Never mind it was predicted and documented in the federal register back in 2010. If you think the current situation is bad, just wait until the employer market is impacted. In the June 17, 2010 Federal Register on page 34553, a Kaiser Foundation employer survey is quoted that predicts between 39% to 69% of employer plans will lose grandfather status (that is the "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan, period" rule) in 2013.
Message to Republicans: Leave the ACA Alone! You spent so much capital in the shutdown trying to change the ACA. You showed that you wanted to make changes for the very reasons that are now becoming known. But that time has now passed. As Americans in general and independents in particular see the impact of left-winged Democratic socialism, they will flock back to the Republican party. All you need to say is vote for Republicans in 2014, and change will be on the way.
Did I miss something? Republican strategic ineptness is astounding.
The Republicans practically committed political suicide "shutting down" the federal government. It is truly amazing to me that so many people got so worked up over not being able to go to the park. The federal park system did seem like the only government program affected by the "Great Shutdown of 2013." In any case, Republicans went to the mat over shutting down the federal government over a desire to repeal or change the Affordable Care Act. It was laudable but foolish. Democrats would not budge on changing it, period.
Now the Obama administration and Democrats generally claim ignorance to the effect of millions of people losing their ability to renew plans in the individual insurance marketplace. Never mind it was predicted and documented in the federal register back in 2010. If you think the current situation is bad, just wait until the employer market is impacted. In the June 17, 2010 Federal Register on page 34553, a Kaiser Foundation employer survey is quoted that predicts between 39% to 69% of employer plans will lose grandfather status (that is the "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan, period" rule) in 2013.
Message to Republicans: Leave the ACA Alone! You spent so much capital in the shutdown trying to change the ACA. You showed that you wanted to make changes for the very reasons that are now becoming known. But that time has now passed. As Americans in general and independents in particular see the impact of left-winged Democratic socialism, they will flock back to the Republican party. All you need to say is vote for Republicans in 2014, and change will be on the way.
Friday, November 8, 2013
HHS Wolves Guarding The Privacy and Security Hen House
As a former technology executive of a health and welfare benefits technology company, I am well versed in privacy and security regulations governing the protection of health information. Those regulations are promulgated by...wait for it...the U.S. Department of Heath and Human Services, or HHS. Yes, the very same department responsible for the failed rollout of the insurance marketplaces of 34 states. If the totality of the problem was simply the inability of HHS to sell insurance products through their web site, that would be one thing...
Security and privacy regulations of "protected health information", or PHI, are governed by a law first passed in 1996 called the Health Insurance Portability and Privacy Act (more commonly know as HIPAA). That law, associated amendments, and the HITECH act enacted as part of the infamous "shovel ready" American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (or ARRA) and their associated regulation have transformed the information technology, data handling, and personnel management environment for companies (or their departments) that deal in personal health information. There are stiff penalties and disclosure requirements for compliance failures. The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) maintains a "wall of shame" for those covered entities that have faced enforcement action.
In the businesses where I served, our company would sign "business associate" agreements with our clients. The purpose of those agreements was ensure that our company and those sub-contractors that we hired would appropriately safeguard protected health information of our client's employees. Those safeguards were stringent and costly. They ranged from hiring practices (including background checks) to numerous technological investments, to extensive training and finally a rigorous audit regimen.
This leads me to numerous questions now that the federal government is so involved in the procurement of health care:
Security and privacy regulations of "protected health information", or PHI, are governed by a law first passed in 1996 called the Health Insurance Portability and Privacy Act (more commonly know as HIPAA). That law, associated amendments, and the HITECH act enacted as part of the infamous "shovel ready" American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (or ARRA) and their associated regulation have transformed the information technology, data handling, and personnel management environment for companies (or their departments) that deal in personal health information. There are stiff penalties and disclosure requirements for compliance failures. The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) maintains a "wall of shame" for those covered entities that have faced enforcement action.
In the businesses where I served, our company would sign "business associate" agreements with our clients. The purpose of those agreements was ensure that our company and those sub-contractors that we hired would appropriately safeguard protected health information of our client's employees. Those safeguards were stringent and costly. They ranged from hiring practices (including background checks) to numerous technological investments, to extensive training and finally a rigorous audit regimen.
This leads me to numerous questions now that the federal government is so involved in the procurement of health care:
- Is HHS subject to the HIPAA law?
- Is HHS a business associate to the health plans to which they are collecting personally identifiable information for the provision of health care?
- Have contractors that HHS is using to build the technology for the marketplaces signed business associate agreements with HHS?
- Has an independent auditor (not the OIG, which is again...part of HHS) established an opinion on the appropriateness of operational controls (via a Reporting on Controls at a Service Organization of the SSAE16 auditing standard or other established auditing standard) to assure those using the exchange that their information will in fact be safeguarded?
- Will HHS disclose their own privacy violations to the OCR, and will those be posted on their own wall of shame?
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Katy ISD Board of Trustees, Fix THIS: Portable Education vs. Permanent Football
Following up to my earlier posts, I decided to research the portable education infrastructure that Katy ISD is grappling with. Ask yourself...is this the best we can do for our kids' public education in a district with vast resources? I believe (I hope) this is why the November 5 bond did not pass. KISD Board of Trustees - please prioritize the elimination of portable education first prior to providing for more permanent football.
Katy Elementary Schools
Fun Facts: 35 elementary schools, 27 schools with portable buildings representing 77% of the schools with temporary classrooms, and 174 portable buildings in all. This information derived from pictures from Google Maps.
Fun Conjecture: Each portable building holds two classrooms (this I know because I attended classes with my daughter), each classroom holds ~20 kids, and lets assume 80% occupancy (this is a WAG), so that is 174 * 2 * 20 * 0.8 = 5,568 children in portable education facilities. Of the 30,602 elementary students (derived from page 35 of this presentation), I estimate ~18% are attending class in portable buildings. Ask yourself: how many elementary school students participate in extracurricular activities that would be hosted at the new proposed football stadium? I am going to guess none, zero. So, $70MM that benefits none of the 30,000 elementary students while 1/5 of them attend class in temporary facilities. Hmm...
Katy ISD Board of Trustees: Reset Your Priorities
The voters spoke on November 5th and it was not even close. Katy ISD voters, by a 55 to 45 margin, said no to extravagance over education. The area's rapid growth has strained basic infrastructure. In my last blog, I wrote about my experience in my daughter's overcrowded elementary school. That school is not an exception. In the coming weeks, I intend to document, for the benefit of Katy ISD Trustees, the scope of the problem.
This was never a battle over taxes, per se, or whether a new stadium was actually needed, or whether the trustees played loose with the justification. A new stadium probably is justifiable. A STEM center IS warranted (the Wall Street Journal just this morning has an article documenting MBA migration away from finance to tech). The Ag Center is in keeping with the cultural roots of the area. This is simply a statement about priorities. Cover the basics first...adequate classrooms and adequate transportation.
I hope Katy ISD Board of Trustees got the message, but lets not rely on one ballot box defeat.
This was never a battle over taxes, per se, or whether a new stadium was actually needed, or whether the trustees played loose with the justification. A new stadium probably is justifiable. A STEM center IS warranted (the Wall Street Journal just this morning has an article documenting MBA migration away from finance to tech). The Ag Center is in keeping with the cultural roots of the area. This is simply a statement about priorities. Cover the basics first...adequate classrooms and adequate transportation.
I hope Katy ISD Board of Trustees got the message, but lets not rely on one ballot box defeat.
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