My wife owns a private investigations firm and gets the legal information well... legally.
I think its important to remember that licensed companies (by the state) that act on the behalf of their clients need to have some level of access to public data. The licensing agencies should be quite strict with offenders.
Just an aside: Popular media has imprinted so many strange ideas of what it is to be a PI, I think the service they provide is sometimes overlooked, especially in areas of family law or where the local authorities do not expend resources. Getting an abused wife a good divorce settlement, or catching someone in insurance fraud helps society as a whole. Its up to PIs and their licencing states to make sure the PI license is not abused.
I've traveled all over (was in the Navy and a high-travel job before going to IBM). One of the places I visited was Austin; it was just at the beginning of the internet boom, and it showed. Austin was really coming into its own as a tech center.
There is something about the city I really love. Its a liberal bastion within a very right-wing state. It has the University of Texas which is a source of cultural events and keep the city feeling "young". Its relaxed and yet manages to be a great center for entrepreneurs.
Licensing varies by state (assuming you are in the US). For Texas its TALI http://www.tali.org/. Its not so easy getting a manager license, but quite easy to get a license with an existing company assuming they want to hire you. You can't have any felonies on your record and you must pass a test.
By day I work for IBM as an engineer. By night, I'm an investigator for my wife's private investigations company http://www.travisinvestigations.com/ . I get to help spy on cheating wives and husbands, catch people in insurance fraud and other such things.
Probably the part I enjoy the most is when I get to make use of new electronic tools like covert GPS tracking devices etc... What I dislike are the long nights surveiling some cheating spouse or watching someone to see if they are poor parents in custody cases.
Of course I also take care of the company computers (mostly Macs believe it or not).
Another recommendation for the http://www.avsforum.com/ . Especially check out the HTPC (Home Theater PC) group and the Plasma group.
Also, I don't think anyone has mentioned anything about burn-in. With plasma, you have to take precautions to prevent this, especially if you are planning to use it with lots of static images. I have a 42" panasonic plasma display (I love it for movies btw). All I've had to do is make some adjustments in the brightness and picture settings along with some modification in my viewing behavior and I've had no trouble with this at all. Do a search on the plasma forum and you'll get good advice on this subject.
Linux if not open source is very much a part of IBM. If you spend any time at any IBM campus that deals with software or cruise through any of their internal web sites, you'll quickly understand this fact. Perhaps more telling is that IBM is spending real dollars to contribute to the Linux community.
Also, a recent post stated that the enterprise db's are in a different space than the available open source offerings. This is very true. For my part, I'm looking forward to better support for an improved database offering from IBM that runs on Linux.
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Comedy is hard,
blowing shit up is (relatively) easy.
My wife owns a private investigations firm and gets the legal information well... legally.
I think its important to remember that licensed companies (by the state) that act on the behalf of their clients need to have some level of access to public data. The licensing agencies should be quite strict with offenders.
Just an aside: Popular media has imprinted so many strange ideas of what it is to be a PI, I think the service they provide is sometimes overlooked, especially in areas of family law or where the local authorities do not expend resources. Getting an abused wife a good divorce settlement, or catching someone in insurance fraud helps society as a whole. Its up to PIs and their licencing states to make sure the PI license is not abused.
There is something about the city I really love. Its a liberal bastion within a very right-wing state. It has the University of Texas which is a source of cultural events and keep the city feeling "young". Its relaxed and yet manages to be a great center for entrepreneurs.
Interviewing anyone interesting?
Licensing varies by state (assuming you are in the US). For Texas its TALI http://www.tali.org/. Its not so easy getting a manager license, but quite easy to get a license with an existing company assuming they want to hire you. You can't have any felonies on your record and you must pass a test.
By day I work for IBM as an engineer. By night, I'm an investigator for my wife's private investigations company http://www.travisinvestigations.com/ . I get to help spy on cheating wives and husbands, catch people in insurance fraud and other such things. Probably the part I enjoy the most is when I get to make use of new electronic tools like covert GPS tracking devices etc... What I dislike are the long nights surveiling some cheating spouse or watching someone to see if they are poor parents in custody cases. Of course I also take care of the company computers (mostly Macs believe it or not).
Another recommendation for the http://www.avsforum.com/ . Especially check out the HTPC (Home Theater PC) group and the Plasma group.
Also, I don't think anyone has mentioned anything about burn-in. With plasma, you have to take precautions to prevent this, especially if you are planning to use it with lots of static images. I have a 42" panasonic plasma display (I love it for movies btw). All I've had to do is make some adjustments in the brightness and picture settings along with some modification in my viewing behavior and I've had no trouble with this at all. Do a search on the plasma forum and you'll get good advice on this subject.
Cheers, and good luck. --Karl
Linux if not open source is very much a part of IBM. If you spend any time at any IBM campus that deals with software or cruise through any of their internal web sites, you'll quickly understand this fact. Perhaps more telling is that IBM is spending real dollars to contribute to the Linux community.
Also, a recent post stated that the enterprise db's are in a different space than the available open source offerings. This is very true. For my part, I'm looking forward to better support for an improved database offering from IBM that runs on Linux.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.