Lagbaja – somebody

For decades now the urban myth in America has been that foreign automobile manufacturers, particularly Toyota, have some quality genii that sets them apart from their American competition. The fact is really more complicated than that.

Toyota is fames for it TPS : a supposedly quality driven production system. The problem is TPS is not really about quality, but rather about efficiency and profit maximization.

True, many followers of Lean Manufacturing will claim there is a great emphasis on quality, but they will also explain that Lean prefers a just-in-time quick turn-around fix to an elaborate over analytical approach favored in Six Sigma, which was  first proposed  at Motorola. Indeed Toyota TPS is just a modern version of Ford’s Just-In-Time, but its proponents; often arming themselves with Japanese words like Kaizen and Jidoku will make you believe otherwise.

I first came across the Toyota myth after purchasing my first Lexus. It was brand new (so I know the entire history) and within 45 days, I had my first incidence. The Lexus dealer and mechanic swore I was dreaming about the shocks and vibrations from brake I felt at high speed (50/60 mph). They could never replicate the vibrations or any of the sounds. But a year or so later, they quietly replaced my drive box as part of a never announced recall.

The dealership have developed a smart way of making it seem like any defect with the automobile is a phantom of the driver’s imagination, until a fatal accident recently exposed a problem in manufacturing that has been allowed to fester for ever.

True, JD Power and Associates ranking for years managed to place Toyota (and Lexus in particular) at the top of the pack for quality, but as it will soon be shown; the rank is mostly a game of perception management and not actual value.

Toyota (and by extension Lexus) marketing and branding machine remains one of the best in the world, more so in the United States, where local vehicles continue to see a decline in sale due to dated shoddy performance records.

Not that the locals have improved so dramatically or that they have figured out a way to manufacture defect free products, the issue is the misconception that the foreign autos are any better.

The latest Toyota saga is a demonstration that being foreign doesn’t make it better, or even cheaper. It is time to start buying America again.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/business/01toyota.html

RSAT is a tool that reduced the need to either physically connect to a windows server or do a remote desktop connection just because you are currently logged into your windows desktop computer at home or far away from the local server.

As an Administrator of a Microsoft Windows Servers, it soon becomes obvious that you need a robust tool to access multiple services on multiple machines located across the globe (in an increasing number of cases). RSAT from Microsoft has continued to meet that challenge for decades.

The Latest version of RSAT for Windows 7 comes in both 32 bit and 64 bit versions and provide administrative support for Windows 2008 Servers and Windows 2003 Servers. These tools are often available natively on Windows Server Machines as part of the server applications such as Active Directory Domain Services tools, Microsoft Hyper Visor tools and many more.

The RSAT for Windows 7 is available from RSAT 

Installation

First, it may be necessary to install the application from the link bellow. The software is a patch to that allows you to use the Windows Installation interface to install needed tools (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7d2f6ad7-656b-4313-a005-4e344e43997d&displaylang=en)

The steps to follow are detailed bellow:

1. Download the Administration Tools package from the Microsoft Web site (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=137379).
2. Open the folder into which the package downloaded, double-click the package to unpack the files, and then start the Remote Server Administration Tools Setup Wizard
   Note
   You must accept the License Terms and Limited Warranty to install Administration Tools.
3. Complete all the steps that are required by the wizard, and then click Finish to exit the wizard when installation is completed.
4. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Programs.
5. In the Programs and Features area, click Turn Windows features on or off.If you are prompted by User Account Control to allow the Windows Features dialog box to open, click Continue.
6. In the Windows Features dialog box, expand Remote Server Administration Tools.
7. Select the remote management tools that you want to install, and then click OK.
8. Configure the Start menu to display the Administration Tools shortcut, if it is not already there.
   1. Right-click Start, and then click Properties.

   2. On the Start Menu tab, click Customize.

   3. In the Customize Start Menu dialog box, scroll down to System Administrative Tools, and then select Display on the All Programs menu and the Start menu. Click OK. Shortcuts for snap-ins installed by Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 are added to the Administrative Tools list on the Start menu.

The alternative is to use command line approach, but you cab find more information about that at TechNet site.

Let us know if this helps and if you want us to bring you more technical how-to’s in the future.

US has so many tax provisions on its books, many of which are so un popular they only add to the usual sneer at the IRS (the nation’s tax collector agency). One of those quaint tax laws is the tax on corporate cell phones when used for personal purposes.

The law was issued in 1989 when George H. Bush (the real 41) was POTUS, and it was meant to be a luxury tax at a time when only a few wealthy folks could afford to use cell phones.  Today, every American has one (including babies in the womb it might seem) and nobody thinks cell phones are luxury items anymore (unless of course you get yours from Gucci or Louis Vuitton), and determining which call is corporate from which is private ! You’ll need accountant for that or else you’ll need more than the typical two cell phones many of us now have to carry in the first place, but I digress.

Anyway, it is quit heartening to hear the Obama administration is taking another step to keep its promise to simplify the nation’s tax law by repealing the obnoxious provision and setting tax payers free of a legal contraption no one can really fathom.

The repeal is expected to make it into the 2011 budget proposal from the white house and is expected to affect the 2010 taxes when they are due in April 2011.

The next act : repeal the alternative minimum tax.

China with its 1.3 billion people, and a size almost 80% of the US, and an economy more than 16% of the United States – and driven mostly by its trade relationship with the United States and US led globalization is becoming a looming threat. China is often referred to by Western media as sophisticated and refined, but its action are hardly civilized.

The Chinese communist party is a totalitarian regime whose economic interest is no less damaging than the USSR, when it was a conglomeration of region states. China is a rogue state with new found power to express itself, all thanks to Western press who have spent the last decade touting a Chinese resurgence as a global power.

The global rise of China is not inevitable, and neither is its desire for global dominance through crooked means such as support for authoritarian governments in Africa and South America as a segway to the resources of those countries. Chinese influence everywhere it steps is hardly constructive.

But the interesting development center around China’s new assumptions of its roles in the International community, where it is putting out all stops to discredit and malign the United States in an effort to be seen as the World’s new superpower. China has for years manipulated its currency to skew its trade advantage in the global market, often at the expense of everyone else including much wealthier as well as much poorer nations. China manages to have a trade surplus with nearly every nation it trades with, not because Chinese goods and services are of comparable or superior quality, but mostly because they are cheaper on account of its manipulated currency. The problem however is the massive collusion of leading western multi-nationals who benefit from the Chinese slave labor.

After decades of inaction, the United States and the West may have boxed itself into a tight corner on what to do with the growing Chinese threat.

At Copenhagen, China shows its disdain and disrespect for other nation with its shabby treatment of a US president who was making all efforts to treat other nations as equal, a smart (but now questionable) departure from previous administration. In the face of newly found US humility, Chinese only response seems to be insult and disrespect. In Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Sudan to mention a few, China always manages to play the role of the spoiler, throwing monkey wrench into every effort to bring about some rational and dignified resolution to age long conflicts. In every case, China makes it known it is more interested in its own national interest than in any over riding global interest. The problem though is that China, despite it newly found clout is still heavily dependent on the West for its growth.

True, the US is now China’s biggest debtor as China has become the US biggest creditor, the problem though is that that relationship is hardly as tenuous as most observers will have us believe. If America were to become selfish about China and decide to protect its interest from Chinese assault including a shameless IP robbery, escalating espionage and outright hostility on most grounds. If America finally decides to take real action against Chinese ascendancy by actively shoring up India, Brazil, And develop real new partnership in Africa, the roar of the Chinese bully will be muted and a world with more harmony will prevail.

China’s long term goal is not a responsible global leadership but a selfish empire building that starts with suppressing its perceived rivals today, looting the resources of weaker nations (yes the West did same thing for centuries) and ultimately expanding beyond its borders. Currently, China continues to be in alignment with the globes most dangerous and repressive regimes (Beijing happens to be on that list) from Venezuela to Myanmar, from North Korea to Iran. It is time something gets done about the Chinese threat to global progress and harmony.

America has not demonstrated balls in the face of a persistent Chinese onslaught because to  many people in the nation prefers to see China as an ally. The problem is China sees the US as a foe. And it does not start or end in Taiwan.

China is an authoritarian and repressive communist state whose people remain largely brain washed –ala 1984. There is no freedom of anything in China and pretending the nation is friendly will only lead to it become an unstoppable threat to global progress. It is time China gets curtailed in the name of global harmony.

The American mobile phone consumer got a nice shot in the arm over the weekend as Verizon and AT&T had a go at their respective unlimited voice service prices. Verizon, the nation’s largest mobile phone company by customer, fired the first shot when it announced changes to its unlimited voice and data plan. The company reduced the price of its unlimited data plan from $99 to $69 and and $29.99 for unlimited data. AT&T responded shortly after matching the Verizon numbers.

On the surface, this can either be viewed as price fixing (both companies were earlier questioned about price fixing by the FCC in 2009) or as a price war. But a closer look will show that the companies are simply in a race to save their respective businesses from more recent entrants into the US mobile phone market and of course to T-Mobile. Early this week, T-Mobile announced a new price for its unlimited voice at $59 and it was only going to be a matter of time before the big two respond. Cricket has been touting unlimited data plan at $49 since early 2009 and the whole unlimited service plan was given real life by Sprint in 2008.

It seems with this new found zeal to lower prices for unlimited calls, the US market is finally moving in the direction of the rest of the world where incoming calls are not billed. American companies have always found a way to milk their customers for as long as possible as is evident in every market from pharmaceuticals to mobile phone devices and phone vendors. The heat in the mobile phone industry continues, but the carriers continue to be the better off for it. Verizon has almost 90 million customers despite the fact that its unlimited voice, data and text service used to be almost twice the cost of the Sprint offering, and even with the new price cut (amounting to 30% for unlimited data) , its price is still $20 more expensive than Sprint’s price but without the price certainty. Verizon’s new pricing scheme does not include unlimited data. Data is now charged at $9.99/25MB and subsequent data access will cost more. In a statement, Verizon points to voice as a commodity in the new market and data as the king.

While the US mobile phone industry approach subscriber saturation, the vendors continue to gouge customers with exorbitant fees, including Verizon’s recently increased de-activation fees and Industry commentators seem to make matters worse with their often confusing characterization of events. Indeed, the latest price cut by the two leading vendors is not so much of a war, but a price realignment to meet their vision of where the customer should be pinched next. Indeed, they nearly acted in concert showing there is more likely a collusion than a war. Both companies haven given the world a show of discord in the weeks leading to their new “price – war”.

There’s a price war in the mobile phone Industry though, but it is being waged by the lesser carriers like Sprint, Cricket, T-Mobile and other lesser known vendors. It is yet to  be seen how these war