Working at Home on the Internet » Community

Joining the SOPA Blackout Tomorrow 8am til 8pm

Joe Hauckes — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:44:21 +0000

I haven’t mentioned anything about SOPA or PIPA, the government and Entertainment Industry’s attempt to Censor the Internet, on the blog at all.

For those of you who already know about the way that Hollywood’s money is influencing our House and Senate to Censor the Internet, you may already be joining in the protest. If you have a WordPress blog and want to join, here is a link for the SOPA blackout Plugin I am using to blackout the blog from 8am til 8pm tomorrow.

For those of you who are not aware or just don’t care, sorry for the inconvenience. But this is important to our First Amendment Rights.

Brook Long’s WHAM article will be available for viewing tomorrow BEFORE 8am or AFTER 8pm.

Little Miss Whines-A-Lot

Brooke Long — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 10:52:57 +0000

All of you who have kids (especially girls) know what whining is all about. You also know how bad it can be. If you work 12 hours a day or are at home all day with your kiddos it can be bad. REAL BAD.

But let me tell you – when you are at home with them all day it really can be awful. You do everything you can to get them to stop. All kinds of discipline styles are tried. But eventually – if they really wear you down – you just give in and give them what they want to JUST STOP WHINING!!!

If you can believe it there is something even worse!

When your friends kids whine, and they actually whine at you! What can you do?

If you just met the person you really just need to keep your mouth shut and help those kids who are whining at you. Or you just have to be that type of person who keeps their mouth shut!

Fortunately (or unfortunately) I am NOT one of those kinds of people. If your kid is whining (or behaving in way that needs discipline) then I am just going to handle it. NO – I don’t beat them! (geez – where is your mind) but I do treat them just like I would treat my own kids. I do back off to a degree – but bad behavior is just bad behavior and needs to be handled.

How do you like to handle things?

Butt in or butt out?

Brooke has been a part of the WAHI family since March 2009 writing articles for the WAHM Wisdom section. She has had her own business since 1997, – Cataluña – web sites redesigned from scratch. Her newest business venture is Cataluña Designs – unique beaded hair accessories and jewelry for girls.

Net Neutrality May Yet Survive!

Joe Hauckes — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:27:40 +0000

As some of you may remember, I have been an advocate of Net Neutrality for quite some time. On more than one occasion, I have written my Congressman Joe Sestak (D-Delaware County, Pa) to voice my opinion on what I feel Net Neutrality means to me, and I feel the Internet as a whole.

This is his e-mail response to my latest communication in it’s entirety…

September 24, 2009

Dear Mr. Hauckes,

Thank you for writing to me concerning H.R. 2902, the Broadband Internet Fairness Act. I greatly appreciate your input on this matter, and I apologize for the delay in my reply.

As a Member of Congress, it is my responsibility to represent my constituents’ concerns and interests and to provide them the honorable and enthusiastic service they deserve. I truly value your thoughts and suggestions on issues before the House. In a representative government such as ours, it is essential that I know what your views are on these issues.

The internet is a vast and increasingly important medium for work, commerce, entertainment, and personal communications. As this trend progresses, there have arisen questions of what the role of the government is in ensuring that all lawful users have equal and unfettered access to the Internet. There is concern that broadband providers could potentially discriminate in their pricing, or favor the internet content owned by the networks themselves. In response to this potential for abuse, the concept of “Net Neutrality” has been championed by those who believe that network-unaffiliated content providers should have the same access to the Internet.

  I strongly believe in the principles of Net Neutrality. The ability of individuals and small businesses to affordably access the Internet is essential for our future economic prosperity. Some argue that the government ought not to regulate the actions of Internet providers, but I believe that basic notions of fairness oblige us to make sure that consumers, and not corporations, decide what content we can view. I have co-sponsored the Internet Freedom Preservation Acts of 2008 and 2009, which seek to prohibit discriminatory pricing by Internet providers and preserve the freedom of users to attach and use non-harmful devices in conjunction with their broadband service.

  As you may know, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski made a major announcement on September 21, 2009, announcing his intent to establish new FCC rules to ensure Net Neutrality. I am a strong supporter of this action by the FCC and will continue to work to see that these assurances are carried out. It is time for Congress and the FCC to stand up for consumers and continue to provide a free and open internet for all Americans.

  The Broadband Internet Fairness Act is designed to prevent major broadband Internet service providers from offering service plan rates that are unjust or discriminatory. It requires those major providers, defined as those providers that serve at least 2 million users, to show justification to the Federal Trade Commission for the volume usage service plans they offer, identifying the different tiers of service based on data transmission volumes, specifying the accompanying terms, rates, and conditions, and showing that the tiers are economically reasonable. “Reasonableness” is determined based on capital costs and operating costs of the facilities and provisions of the different service tiers. The Act authorizes the Commission to enforce these requirements.

As I mentioned earlier, I am a co-sponsor of H.R. 3458, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009. The Internet Freedom Preservation Act is designed to assess and promote Internet freedom for consumers and content providers. Internet freedom generally embodies the notion that consumers and content providers should be free to send, receive, access and use the lawful applications, content, and services of their choice on broadband networks, possess the effective right to attach and use non-harmful devices to use in conjunction with their broadband services, and that content providers not be subjected to new, discriminatory charges by broadband network providers. These general principles have often been referred to as “network neutrality” principles as well.

In the 110th Congress, I co-sponsored the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008, H.R. 5353. That bill did two things. First, it amended the 1934 Communications Act to include some policies which state that “to maintain the freedom to use for lawful purposes broadband telecommunications networks, including the Internet, without unreasonable interference from or discrimination by network operators.” This is a very important action because it prohibits interference from network operators of the Internet. The legislation establishes overarching national broadband policy. Similar to the provisions of law that today guide U.S. telecommunications and media policy, which were enacted decades ago as Section 1 of the Communications Act, the bill proposes a new section to the Communications Act to update these policy objectives and articulate new national policy for the broadband era.

The previous version of this bill included mandates for the Federal Communications Commission to assess broadband services and consumer rights. That section of the bill is not included in the 111th Congress, however, because the new FCC Chairman, Julius Genachowski, has already undertaken many of those actions and is moving the Commission toward protecting net neutrality. Specifically, the FCC has recently taken stronger action to ensure that broadband network providers adhere to the FCC’s Broadband Policy Statement (FCC 05-151).

The goal of this bipartisan legislation is to assure consumers, content providers, and high tech innovators that the significant, open design of the Internet will be preserved. H.R. 3458 is designed to assess and promote Internet freedom for consumers and content providers. Internet freedom generally embodies the notion that consumers and content providers should be free to send, receive, access and use the lawful applications, content, and services of their choice on broadband networks, possess the effective right to attach and use non-harmful devices to use in conjunction with their broadband services, and that content providers not be subjected to unreasonably discriminatory practices by broadband network providers.

I hope this response sufficiently outlines my strong support for Net Neutrality. Thank you again for your letter. If I can be of any additional assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me. I look forward to our future correspondence.

Ok, it may be a canned response. I don’t really expect individual attention, but I am really glad to see that my Voice still counts and maybe I contributed a little bit to the effort of so many to ensure Net Neutrality.

Lest We Forget

Joe Hauckes — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:56:14 +0000

It was 8 short years ago today…

Lest we Forget

Here is a link to the 9/11 Victim List

I am missing Y & Z in the list, if you know anyone whose name should be on the list, Please let me know.

English is NOT the Only Language of Working at Home

Joe Hauckes — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:15:17 +0000

Some of you long time readers may remember way back when, before the Changeover to the Current Theme, I had a link to Google Translator right below the Header. Long ago I realized that I had visitors to the blog from all over the world and wanted a way to make it easier for people whose second language was English to find out about Working at Home in their own language.

However, after the changeover to the New Theme, I never got around to reinstalling the link for various reasons not the least of which was the usefulness (or lack thereof) of Google Translator. But I still have a lot of readers from other countries stopping by for information that may be helpful to them.

Let me show you todays list of visitors by Country

Visitors by Country

Granted the majority of readers are English speakers (or at least in a country where the primary language is English) but there are quite a few from countries where English may or may not be even a secondary language.

Where am I going with this?

Well, since the main objective of Working at Home on the Internet is to give people an idea of what it’s like to Work at Home, Trials, Tribulations, Triumps etc, and there are people throughout the world looking for information in that regard…

I added the ConveryThis plugin to give ready access to readers who may have a little problem reading English but still need or want the information I try to provide.

BUT…

I have a question for you, anyone who speaks and reads a language other than English, Is This Tool Any Good?

If you would, please check out the translator in your language of choice and let me know if it is worth having. And if it is, please tell your friends that they can read the blog in their own language too.