You’ve heard all about this issue in the media. But, what you may not know is that this issue is now even reaching into the military (including our armed forces in Iraq).  The Pentagon has reported that obesity has doubled since 2003 in the US Military. Here are people who are actively serving for our national security and they’re becoming obese.  I always thought that army food wasn’t that great and was designed to keep the troops’ healthy.  I guess that’s not happening.

Some people attribute stress to the obesity epidemic in the US.  But, who or what is to blame for the growing waistlines?  Clearly, people do need to take responsibility for what they eat.  On the other hand, the human body does not come with an owner’s manual.  So, these two issues combined with the media, the food industry, so-called professionals, easy access to foods and misinformation lead to the waistline growth.  Which one is to blame?  They all are.

Food Industry

I know we all want to blame and, in some cases, even sue the food industry for this issue.  In some cases, lawsuits may even be warranted.  However, each person needs to take responsibility for their body.   Unfortunately, in some situations it may not be possible to purchase and eat your own foods. You may end up being in a semi-captive situation where you eat what you are given and have no access or say in the foods that are served.  In these cases, that establishment is to blame for feeding you poor quality food choices.  This may be the situation in the military.  This situation may also follow for lower income families who need to eat, but cannot afford to purchase produce due to its higher costs.

However, when the person can purchase their own food, make their own food and then eat that food freely, that’s where self-responsibility must take place.  You can’t blame the food industry when you have choices.  Basically, as a consumer, you must take responsibility for your food choices.  But, even more than that, you need to take responsibility for your body.  You can’t push your growing waistline off onto food manufacturers because you made the choice to eat their food.  There may be other liabilities that you can call the food industry on, but it isn’t personal responsibility for your body.

Food manufacturers do, on the other hand, provide loads of misinformation on their food items, so you have to become an intelligent and informed shopper to avoid these FDA-endorsed yet very deceptive food labels.  Note that deceptively labeled food items would be a liability for the food manufacturer except for the fact that the FDA has endorsed and approved those mislabeling practices. So, while you may want to sue the food manufacturer for mislabeling, you simply cannot.  These practices are definitely legal.  But, that doesn’t make them right, helpful or help you make an informed choice.  That said, you need to understand how to read the labels and discard the useless deceptive information and to determine just how nutritious something really is for you.

Three types of macronutrients defined

Of the three types of main nutrients your body needs, these are protein, carbs and fats.  Protein consists of meats, fish, eggs and is also in other products like milk, cheese, nuts and beans.  Fats consist of oils and is in foods including butter, avocados, nuts, fish, meats and table oils.  Carbs may be the hardest to identify in foods, but consist of both starches and simple sugars.  Starches include corn, rice, wheat, barley, sorghum, rye or any other type of grain.  Simple sugars include any granulated sugar (sucrose), fruit sugars (fructose) and dextrose (included in some food items). Sugar Alcohols should also be considered a simple sugar of sorts and these include maltitol, xylitol, mannitol (or any other sugar ending in ‘ol’).  Other sugars include maltodextrin and oligofructose among others.

All sugars ultimately become glucose in the body.  So, eating that piece of bread is ultimately the same as eating a piece of candy.  The only difference between candy and bread is the amount of fiber it contains.  Most finely granulated white flour is really no better than sugar and digests with similar speed.  With white flour based foods, you might as well be eating straight sugar.  Eating ‘whole wheat’ based items may slow down the digestion some, but that’s all dependent on the amount of fiber.  Most ‘whole wheat’ items may be partially made with white flour, so be careful with that.

Basically, your plate needs to consist of proteins, fats and carbs in the proper quantities to keep the body balanced.  Too many of any one of these nutrients and your body will compensate by becoming fat or having other issues.

A Society of Grain

The grain industry has a huge hold over our food supply.  You simply look at the average American meal and you will see one thing that dominates the plate: grains.  These include primarily include corn, wheat and rice.  But, there is also barley, rye and sorghum.  These grains are then made into items such as bread, crackers, cakes, cookies, cupcakes and pasta.  Once added to the plate, these items consume at least 25-50% of our dinner plate and probably 50-100% of our snacks.

Starchy vegetables

On top of these heavily starchy grains, we add yet another starch to our plates in the form of a potato and corn.  Yes, corn is both a grain and a vegetable depending on how it’s used.  So, between the bread and the potato, our dinner plate now contains probably 50% or more starches.  If you add corn as a side dish, that’s even more starch and makes up for at least 75% of the meal.  But, starch and starchy vegetables aren’t the complete answer to obesity.. even if the low-carb diets would like you to think so.  We’ll come back to the starch and weight relationship shortly.

Vegetables

In the vegetable category which should consume at least one-third of the plate, we should be serving green leafy vegetables such as cabbage, lettuce, swiss chard, spinach, mustard greens and similar.  Other vegetables include broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, beets, onions, garlic, soybean (green), green beans, leeks, etc.   Unfortunately, many people choose to skip this portion of the meal.  But, this portion needs to consume at least 25% of the plate (and actually, these should consume the most).  The reason they should consume the most is that they are high in fiber, low in calories and fill you up. Unfortunately, many vegetables can also cause flatulence and other intestinal issues (due to higher amounts of fiber).

Protein portion

Of the rest of our plate, we reserve the protein portion of the meal.  This includes foods such as, obviously, meats like beef, chicken, eggs, pork, turkey, fish and other seafood.   For vegetarians, there are other sources of proteins such as legumes, soy and other vegetable proteins and even milk (if lacto-vegetarian).

Beans

Legumes should be catagorized separately because they are both a starch and a protein at the same time.  So, while it’s great that they contain protein, they are also fairly starchy.  So, eating them in addition to other starches only serves to undermine any sensible weight loss approach.  So, be careful when adding beans to your plate.  Beans include white beans, kidney beans, black eyed peas, English peas, sugar snap peas, peanuts, refried beans, black beans, Lima beans, fava beans, etc.  It’s pretty easy to identify a bean on the plate just strictly due to its consistency and texture.  Beans also have one additional side effect that can be unpleasant in a lot of people: gas.  So, if you know you are intolerant of beans, be careful adding them to your plate.

Fruits and Nuts

Fruits should be considered a sugar (carb) combined with fiber.  So, when adding these in, understand that they add to your total calorie intake as well as your sugar intake for the day.  Nuts are considered both a protein and a starch.  So, again, add them into your total protein and carb intake for the day.  Fruits, like vegetables, are far lower in calories than nuts.  So, you can add more fruits to your diet (assuming you aren’t carb intolerant or diabetic) and reduce your calorie intake.  Nuts, on the other hand, are high in calories.  So, eating lots of nuts can add a lot more to your calorie intake than you think.

Dairy

Dairy products (cheese, milk, milk-based products) can be reasonably high in both calories and carbs (lactose), so be careful when adding lots of dairy to your diet.  Yes, diary does contain calcium and vitamin D (fortified), but you should try to find other ways to add calcium and D to your diet than through dairy.

Junk Foods & Soda

When trying to readjust your diet to be more healthy, you really have to get rid of these from your diet.  Junk foods are those that add calories without substance.  They may make you ‘feel’ good while you’re eating them, but the sugar high that you get and the subsequent weight gain isn’t wanted.  So, avoid junk foods.  Junk foods include potato chips, pretzels, bread (more than one piece per meal), crackers, Triscuit, Wheat Thins, cookies, cakes, cupcakes, rolls, biscuits or anything basically that uses refined white flour.  Refined white flour needs to be removed from any healthy diet.  Junk food also includes straight sugar based candies like hard candies and candy bars.  It also includes pies and ice cream. If you need baked goods, then make them from nuts, coconut or other alternative flours than refined white and wheat flours.  Note that whole wheat flour isn’t.  If the flour is ground to a powder, then it is not whole.  This is yet another label that mislabels the food.  Anything that’s ground to a powder consistency is refined to the point where it takes no digestive processing.  Note that I also include Pizza and Hamburgers in the junk food category because the food contains 40% or more refined wheat based flours.

As for commercial sodas, avoid them.  If you must drink sodas and want to be frugal, buy a SodaStream carbonator and carbonate your own water.  A SodaStream will save you money over time and prevent you from having to carry home heavy bottles of soda water.  If you can afford the costs and want to deal with carrying heavy bottles home, buy soda water in liter bottles.  Then, use your own sweeteners (like Stevia) and flavorings (like Vanilla) to create your own homemade sodas.  This avoids the acidic issues of commercially produced sodas and it also avoids the unnecessary preservatives and additives that are placed into commercial soda flavorings.  It also avoids the added sugars and potentially unhealthy lab created sweeteners.

Resting body caloric needs

The number one issue when it comes to weight gain or loss is how much to eat.  The suggested daily calorie allotment on the Nutrition Facts label of foods usually shows a 2000 calorie a day and sometimes a 2500 calorie a day value. This labeling implies that this is the number of calories YOU should be eating.  In fact, this assumption is incorrect. You cannot know how many calories per day that your body needs unless you get evaluated by using a device that measures your resting caloric needs.  One such Resting Metabolic measuring device is called the BodyGem.  This device measures several things at once through a mouthpiece where you sit and breathe.  As the devices are quite expensive, they can be found at better health clubs like 24 Hour Fitness.  As part of getting a membership, 24 Hour Fitness will measure your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) with the BodyGem. For example, my resting body caloric needs were tested at 1700 calories per day.  Even more than this, you need to understand what that number represents.  Is that the number at which the body will stay in equilibrium (i..e, no gain and no loss)?  Or, is that the number at which the body will gain or lose weight?  This information was not made clear to me.  So, getting yourself tested is only half of the battle.  You need to make sure you understand what that number represents.

Calorie?

Many people just assume that people know what a calorie represents.  In fact, most people don’t.  One calorie is the amount of food it takes to raise one liter of water one degree when that food is burned.  So, they burn the food in a controlled environment and then determine the how many calories the food is based on how much it raises the water temperature.  Note, however, that burning food is not an identical process the body uses to convert the food into energy.  Burning something is a combustion chemical process.  The body doesn’t use combustion to convert the food into energy. Instead, it relies on lock and key chemicals (solvents) to dissolve the molecular bonds of the foods. Thus, a calorie is only a representative measure of how the body works.  It’s symbolic and is allegedly equivalent enough that it works.  So, we’ve all taken for granted the calorie and what it represents when it may, in fact, not be as accurate as we would like.  For the sake of argument, however, we will assume that the calorie as measured is accurate for the purposes of this article.

Unrealistic labeling

Unfortunately, the FDA and the food industry are both working together to keep the public misinformed.  It’s unfortunate, but the food labels are really not there to help consumers.  The Nutrition Facts label is probably the only label on the package that you can trust as far as sheer numbers go.  So, what is inaccurate about the labeling?  Well, let’s start with the numbers of servings.  Realistic labeling for a small package of chips should state 1 serving per package.  Instead, many food manufacturers break down what should be a single serving into multiple servings.  So, you might find that single serving package stated as 2.5 servings.  So, the entire nutrition facts will only show you the amounts for 1 sub-serving of that bag of chips (which is about 1/3 of the package).  Ok, so who’s going to eat 1/3 of a package and put it away? For many reasons, this labeling idea is stupid.  First, it’s a single serving package and should be treated and labeled that way. Second, no one will store 2/3 of the package for later consumption as it will be stale in only a few hours.  But, the casual consumer might not look at the number of servings and assume that they ate 80 calories when they, in fact, just ate ~240 calories.

The numbers of servings issue is but one on the label.  In addition to the above, the Nutrition Facts lists total Daily Value (DV%) based on a 2000 or 2500 calorie per day diet.  Again, you need to know if your body gains or loses fat based on those assumptions.  If your body gains at 2000 per day, then you shouldn’t be using those DV values as a guide.  You will need to calculate your own Daily Values for yourself based on the Nutrition Facts panel.

Other mislabeling issues include the front of the package.  Again, based on the number of servings they put into the Nutrition Facts panel, they can then say ‘80 Calories Per Serving’ on the front of the package.  This then makes the consumer assume that because it appears to be a single serving package that the entire package contains 80 calories. Again, mislabeling at its finest.

What it comes down to is read the Nutrition Facts label closely and read two pieces of information: Numbers of Servings and Calories Per Serving.  Then multiply that out in your head to find out how many REAL calories are in that package.  Remember: Numbers of Servings * Calories Per Servings = Total Calories in package.  Always determine this before you put that food into your cart.  What you think may look like 80 calories may end up being 500 calories.

Eating Out

With laws being enacted in many states requiring restaurants to put nutritional information on the menu, you can now see that Pepper Encrusted New York Strip with Penne Pasta and Spinach is 1500 calories.  1500 calories!  That’s nearly my entire daily allotment of calories in one meal!  Combine that with their 800 calorie desert and you’re well over your daily recommended intake with one single meal!  That doesn’t even take into account breakfast and lunch you ate earlier.

Weight Loss

It’s simple, to lose weight you need a calorie deficit.  That means that you take in less calories than your body expends in a day.  With a calorie deficit, the body reaches into its fat stores to provide energy.  This means you can’t eat that 2300 calorie meal combined with breakfast and lunch and expect to lose weight.  It won’t happen.  In fact, that’s the recipe for weight gain.  This will, over time, add pounds to the hips and give you the spare tire that you don’t want.  It makes you buy bigger clothes and feel bad about yourself.  But, the food industry feeds other industries including the health industry, the insurance industry, the hospitals and on the other side, the food industry itself, the restaurant industry and even the clothing industry (as you get bigger).  So, eating more and gaining more weight gives you incentive to spend more money on health and weight related issues (including gym memberships, supplements, weight loss fads, diet supplements and so on).

The simple truth about weight loss: you lose weight through a calorie deficit.  You have to eat less than your body expends.  Yes, this means you need to remain hungrier than you’ve ever been.  But, hungry means your body is losing weight.  You can’t lose weight without being hungry at times.  But, the desperate hunger you feel initially will subside over time as your body pulls from the fat stores and gets used to less calories.

Calories per day

This is yet another misnomer.  We think of our bodies in terms of a 24 hour period and how many calories we shove into it during this period.  This is wrong.  The body doesn’t know the concept of a day (or a 24 hour period).  The body utilizes a continuous cycle of processing.  When you eat, you interrupt the fat loss process by adding external calories.  Once those calories are finished being processed by the body, the body can then go back to utilizing internal calories from its own stores.   This means smarter eating.  When you do eat, eat foods that process completely to give maximum nutrition and then allow the body to go back to processing internal stores. This means smaller meals more often to reduce food processing times.  Large meals keep your body processing external foods far longer.  With a larger meal, there is a large likelyhood that your large meal will still be processing once you start your next meal.  So, your body never gets into fat loss mode between meals.

Instead, you need to think of your body as a constant processing machine.  It doesn’t recognize a 24 hour day.  It continually processes.  So, you need to think about eating foods not in a 24 hour period but on a continuous basis.  So, about every 2 waking hours you should eat a small meal.  That’s the necessary amount of time it takes to process the small meal. You do not need to eat while sleeping.  In fact, the sleep fasting period lets your body burn fat. However, if you go too long between meals, the body may go into survival mode and conserve.  Adding a small meal keeps the body aware that it is receiving external fuel and helps prevent survival conservation mode.  Note that the body’s conservation mechanism can help you lose weight (as well as gain it), so you need to understand how to manage that by eating small meals.

Lower Calorie Foods

By reading the Nutrition Facts panel closely (including numbers of servings) you can accurately determine if that food fits within your calorie requirements.  For example, you can eat that cookie if you want.  But, if you’re looking at 200-300 calories per meal, that 160 calorie cookie is over half of that meal.  You can do it, but you need to readjust your meal intake accordingly.

Eating Out Continued

Once you get into eating smaller meals more often, you may find that eating out is a thing of the past. It’s almost impossible to find restaurants that will serve you a 200-300 calorie meal.  Most average meals in restaurants are around 800-1200 per meal.  You can limit this by leaving food on the plate, but that’s a waste of money.  If you’re with friends, they may think you’re odd not eating an entire meal.  I find it simpler to make meals for myself at home.   On the other hand, you do need a cheat meal occasionally to keep the body off-guard and kick it out of survival conservation mode.  So, your cheat meal should be a ’standard’ meal you will find at a restaurant, in addition to your 200-300 calorie per meal meals every 2 hours. You should add a cheat meal no more than once per week.

Starch and Weight

Because starch is a big staple on our plates, we must acknowledge the role it plays in our health.  We cannot deny that starchy foods are a contributor to our obesity.  Most starchy foods are combined with fat and that’s a recipe for fat storage.  The reason, starchy foods raise blood insulin levels and insulin is a carrier to bring the fat into our cells for storage.  So, the more insulin the body produces, the more likely you are to store fat.  When combined with an overly large calorie meal, these body processes are perfectly aligned to store the fat in our cells.  Because we continue to eat the same way day in and out, we do not give our bodies a chance to release the fat.  So, more and more storage of fat is added and never removed.  Thus, we get fatter and fatter to the point of obesity.  As a result of this, we need to put starch into perspective.  This means, reducing the amount of starches you eat at a meal and reduce their overall importance in the meal itself.

Losing Fat?

If you’re committed to losing the fat, you need to understand the body’s food and survival mechanisms, food labeling, foods that work for you and nutrition.  Our bodies were designed to be hunters and gatherers.  That means we eat meals when we find foods in the wild.  Once we find them (or hunt them), we would basically eat smaller meals more often rather than sitting down for a big meal.  We would also expend our energy engaging in food search. The body’s internal processes have not changed since the days of the hunters and gatherers.  But, our meals and energy uses have.   We now eat more calories in one sitting than ever in human existence.  We sit on couches watching TV, web surfing and playing video games.  The body just can’t cope with the excessive calories and, thus, adds the fat to the stores for future famine.  In fact, eating too many calories triggers the body’s survival conservation mode by storing the fat for famine situations.  The famine situation never comes, so we get fatter and fatter.  Just as not eating enough food can trigger storage conservation, so does eating too much.

There is a middle ground where you need to eat small meals to keep the body’s food processing active, but not enough food to kick in fat storage mode.  This is the balance in eating that you need to observe.  The balance is in calories that you eat, but not always what you eat.  The specific foods that you eat fills in the blanks for vitamins and minerals.  Limited calorie intake prevents fat storage and encourages fat store release.  Note that as our foods have become more calorie dense, they have been lacking in vitamins and minerals.  So, you may find that you need to add supplements for vitamins and minerals.  I recommend individual vitamins in gelatin capsules versus packed tablets containing recommended Daily Values (which could be inaccurate).

On a fnal note, once you get to your target body shape and weight, you will need to find your equilibrium mode to maintain that weight.  To do this, increase your calorie intake for each meal and eventually you will find that equilibrium. You will also need to eat more food the more active you become.  If you drastically increase your daily activity, you will need to compensate for that activity by increasing food intake to prevent, again, survival conservation mode (among other health issues that could arise).

Disclaimer:  This information is not intended to be used to as a diagnosis, to diagnose or as a diet.  It is strictly to be used for information purposes.  You will need to find your own way to lose the weight.  These suggestions may work to help you understand the body’s processes, but you will need to choose the foods that keep you healthy and let you lose the fat.  Everybody’s body is different, so this information may not work for you.  You should also consult with a doctor before launching any calorie restricted diet to determine any pre-existing conditions prior to dieting. This information is provided as is.  All risk of use of this information is assumed by the reader.  This information is copyright 2009 Randosity.  All rights reserved.

After having used Windows 7 for at least a month now regularly, I’ve come to realize one thing… Windows 7 is not stable!  Things that had been fixed in Vista are now clearly broken again.  For example, I could run Vista for probably a month or longer without the need to reboot.  If I’m lucky, I can get away with running Windows 7 for about a week or two before its innards get flakey.  For example, there are now processes that hang and cannot be killed by Task Manager.  This forces the need to reboot.  Once the apps hang, it’s impossible to reboot cleanly.  So, I have yet to be able to reboot Windows 7 without having to force power off the system.  Just today, I once again tried to use the ‘Restart’ function which did absolutely nothing.  Windows 7 appeared to start the shutdown process and then clearly hung and did not finish.

I have also had a problem with Windows 7 drivers.  For example, the ATI driver I now have installed on Windows 7 is clearly bugged.  When I run Daz Studio 3, I can load a specific 3D model set and crash the system with a BSOD.  Worse, Windows 7 knows that it crashed, but it doesn’t have any clue what crashed it.  It knows it was a driver crash, but not the specific driver.  When I click the troubleshoot panel that appears after the system reboots, the panel goes away and offers no advice.

These are clearly the problems of yet another immature and sad operating system attempt by Microsoft.  Windows 7 should be more stable than Vista (which was, according to a lot of people, very unstable).  Well, I’m here to say that Vista is a ton more stable than Windows 7 is.  Yes, Vista is quirky and odd in places, but the underlying OS is pretty much rock steady.  I rarely had crashes or BSODs.  I could leave the system running for long periods of time without instability.  Windows 7, on the other hand, is just completely unstable.  This thing should never have made it out of Beta, let alone to the store shelves.

Should you install?

To answer this question is… no, do not install this disaster of an OS.  Wait until at least Service Pack 1.  When that arrives, Microsoft might actually be able to make this disaster workable.  Right now, it’s an unmitigated unstable mess.  In fact, this OS is far worse than Vista in a lot of respects at this point.  If you are on XP, stay there.  Since there is no upgrade path from XP, you probably don’t want to try an upgrade anyway.. let alone to something that’s much more unstable than XP.  Not to mention, Windows 7 has a far bigger disk usage footprint than XP.

If you are running Vista, carefully examine if you really need this OS.  Frankly, the bells and whistles that Microsoft added aren’t enough to justify an upgrade or the expense.  If you happen to buy a new computer with Windows 7 loaded, then take it.  If you want to upgrade an existing system, don’t do it.

Side by Side installs no longer available

Since the release of Vista, Microsoft has done away with side by side installs.  You used to be able to install a new operating system on the same disk drive as an existing other Windows version.  As of Vista, Microsoft stopped that.  Instead, you are now required to buy a new disk and install it on that fresh drive.  You cannot install it on the same partition as an existing other Windows install.  Windows 7 will rename the old installation to Windows.old and make it no longer bootable.  You might be able to get away with a side-by-side install on a separate partition, but I’ve never tested this.   So, if you’re thinking of taking Windows 7 for a test spin first, you should buy a new disk and install it on that blank disk.  Then, decide if you want to upgrade your Vista partition based on that test drive.  Alternatively, I’d recommend using something like Ghost to clone your existing partition for a test drive upgrade onto that blank new drive.  If you don’t like it, put your old disk back in and boot your system back into Vista (or whatever).

If you really must have Windows 7 on your machine, go for it.  But, be warned that it is not stable by any stretch.  Perhaps Service Pack 1 will fix these issues, but right now be warned that you will likely experience the same issues I have.  If you are an IT professional thinking of upgrading an employee’s computer, you should wait until Windows 7 is far more stable than it is today.

While the initial response of Windows 7 seems to have been positive from beta users, I have personally found it really no better than Windows Vista.  In fact, most of the touted improvements really aren’t there.  Here is a basic review of Windows 7 as compared to Vista.

Not much improved

Windows 7 has not really improved enough over Windows Vista.  It’s no wonder why Microsoft was able to shove this one out the door so rapidly.  Effectively, Microsoft gave Vista a slight UI facelift, added a couple of tweaks here and there and then pushed the product to the shelves.  In fact, I’m really wondering why it took as long as it did with so little improvement.  The same issues that exist in Vista still exist in Windows 7.  Namely, these include limited driver support, application compatibility and enhanced security that gets in the way.  I’ll discuss these issues below.

Driver Compatibility

When Vista was released, one of the main issues was driver support.  This issue is exactly the same with Windows 7.  For example, I have a Dell Studio XPS system running Vista 64 Home Premium edition.  It’s running 64 bit because I have 12GB of memory and that won’t work on 32 bit Vista (or Win 7).  Dell has had months to ready drivers for this brand new system (purchased July 2009).  Yet, Dell does not offer any drivers on their support site for this hardware.  Yes, they did support an upgrade disc, but that’s about it.  Dell expects you to accept the drivers that come with Windows 7 rather than obtaining the proper and updated drivers.  Worse, Windows 7 driver support is still very bare.  I wouldn’t expect to see full driver support for Win 7 until at least this time 2010 (possibly longer depending on adoption rate).

Note that 64 bit Windows requires 64 bit drivers.  Windows 7 cannot load or use 32 bit drivers under the 64 bit edition.  So, if you need to use 32 bit drivers, you should use the 32 bit version.  Of course, that means you are limited to 4GB of memory.  So, if you have older printer drivers that do not support 64 bit edition, you will have to hope that Windows 7 has a driver or be prepared to throw the printer out and buy something new.  This also follows with devices like Dlink’s Skype phone adapter.

You may be able to get around some of these issues using Sun’s Virtualbox or MS’s Virtual PC and loading 32 bit XP under a virtual environment.  Note, however, that not all devices offer passthrough to the virtual machine, so you may not be able to run those older devices requiring 32 bit drivers.  You may be able to get this working under Win 7 Ultimate’s XP mode.

Overall, driver support is rated 1.5 stars out of 5: poor

Application Compatibility

As with Vista, Windows 7 fails in this area still.  Frankly, because Windows 7 is effective Vista with a face lift, all of the same compatibility problems still exist in Windows 7.  So, don’t expect your old XP apps to run properly under Windows 7 in many cases.  This is especially true of apps that also tie to hardware devices that require drivers.

Worse, I have some 3D apps that work fine on Vista, but do not work at all under Windows 7.  This indicates to me that Microsoft has further broken application compatibility between Vista and Windows 7.  So, be prepared to lose some apps that may have worked under Vista.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars: fair

Enhanced Security – User Access Controls (UAC)

Security of your operating system and data is a big priority and is understood.  Any level of security has to straddle a fine line between securing the system and not getting in the way of using the system.  Frankly, UAC is a complete and utter failure.  This system is so in-your-face about security that it is a turn off.  Combine this with its constant verbose ‘Are you really sure’ messaging, people will soon ignore the messages just to get the work done.  Basically, this system is likened to ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’.  If you make every alert important and nothing ever happens, people stop listening.  Will UAC stop a system from being infected?  Probably not.  People will still run apps they shouldn’t run.

Beyond UAC, Windows 7 changed nothing over Vista.  Windows 7’s UAC appears identical to Vista for all intents and purposes.  Frankly, it’s still so much of a hassle that I still turn it off.

Other problems

Other than the above, not much else has changed.  All of the main usability problems that were introduced in Vista are still in Windows 7.  For example, when you open file requesters, they tend to default to large icons.  I prefer ALL of my file lists (whether a file requester or a Windows explorer window) to be in list formatted with the colums Name, Size and Date Modified.  Both Vista and Windows 7 default to Name, Tags, Rating and Date. Sometimes it even adds ‘Date Taken’.  I have no intention of rating or tagging every file on my filesystem.  For files in a photos folder or a music folder, yes.  Definitely not every file on the filesystem, so these colums are completely inappropriate for 98% of my filesystem.  Yet, there the headers are each time a new file requester opens.

So, when you’re constantly having to change the columns to show the data you need, that’s very inefficient.  I have wasted a ton of time just rearranging these windows each and every time I open a new file requester.  Please Microsoft, figure out a way to let us save our favorite colums and make it actually STICK.

In Windows explorer, this USED to work in XP.  In Vista, and it also now appears Win 7, you could set up your preferred folder view and go into the options and ‘Make all folders like this one’.  That works for a while.  However, inexplicably the folders eventually revert back to their old column headers without any warning.  So, changing this setting and saving it doesn’t work.  Again, it’s another inefficient use of my time.

Time Wasters

On top of the above inefficiencies, Microsoft has decided to bury many functions down up to three layers deep to change system settings.  For example, you used to be able to right-click ‘My Network Places’ and get right to the settings for the network adapters.  Now, however, if you do this you get to a new UI interface that requires you to click one or two additional links to get to the configuration panel.  In some cases, they’ve split features out into multiple separate windows to do the same thing that one panel used to do in XP.  Again, this requires not only digging through multiple places, you now have to dig through multiple panels.

Windows 7 should have been redesigned in a major way.  Instead, we get a rehash of Vista.  The learning curve is still there.  Nothing has been done to increase user efficiency in the UI.  Overall, I’d give Windows 7 a 3 stars out of 5. Microsoft has a lot of work to get Windows 7 even close to the efficiency level of XP.  They also need to address the lack of drivers, driver compatibility and application compatibility issues.  Eventually, they won’t be issues once developers redesign their apps to work with Windows 7, but there are still lots of legacy apps that do not work.

Should you buy Windows 7?

That’s really the question of the year.  If you are buying a new machine that comes with Windows 7, go for it.  If you are running Windows XP, you might want to think twice still.  Windows 7 does not solve all of the XP compatibility problems.  So, if you’re looking at upgrading an existing system, I would recommend against that.  You will find that most of your apps may no longer work.  So, be careful when thinking about an XP upgrade. Note that you can’t directly upgrade XP to Windows 7 anyway.  Windows 7 will move Windows to Windows.old and then install a fresh copy.  This means you will need to find all of your app discs and reinstall (assuming that that he apps are Windows 7 compatible).  So, this is a real pain.

I would recommend that you buy a new hard drive and place it into your XP machine and install onto the new hard drive.  Then set it up to dual boot.  So, you can boot into Windows 7 or XP depending on what you need. Dual booting is a hassle, but at least it retains your apps.  You can even create a virtual environment out of your XP hard drive and run it under Virtualbox or Virtual PC in Windows 7.  So, you might want to consider a virtual environment for your XP system for compatibility.  Note that virtual environments work great for Windows desktop apps (apps that use the desktop).  Games, on the other hand, don’t always work that well… so be careful with games as they may not work in a virtual environment.

In answer to this question,  only upgrade to Windows 7 from Vista.  Do not upgrade XP  to Windows 7 as it’s a waste.  Instead, buy a new hard drive and install Windows 7 fresh. Then, copy over your files from your XP hard drive that are important to you.  Consider the age of XP, you probably need to buy a new hard drive anyway just strictly considering the hard drive’s age.  Hard drives are only rated to last about 5 years reliably and XP is long older than 5 years since it was released.

Good luck.

In my line of business, purchasing services is part of doing business.  Unfortunately, many businesses fail at sufficiently managing this budding relationship properly.  This time is a crucial in relationship building between the two companies.  If the order process does not go smoothly, is delayed or is slow to process or complete, this can damage the relationship from the start.  A lot of companies pride themselves on their actual services, but how many company’s pride themselves or tout their order entry and completion processes?  Not many.

All too often, you place an order for a service and the order does not complete as you expect.  At first, you think this operation should be simple.  However, when installation day and time passes without a peep, this leaves you wondering what happened.  So, you call the sales and/or customer support line only to find out they don’t have a record of your order.  Unfortunately, this is a sign of disorganization.  A sign that this company fails to manage the order entry and order pipeline system properly.   This is a company that should leave you with the question, “Do I really want to do business with them?” Rightly, you should be asking yourself that question.  In some cases, however, this may be a cable company or some other company where you are over a barrel.  Defacto monopolies exist in society and there’s little we as consumers can do about that.  So, if you want that service, you must purchase it from that company or you don’t get it.  But, even with all of that in mind, you should still ask the question, “Should I do business with this company?”

Disorganization is nearly always a sign of things to come.  If there is this much disorganization surrounding the installation  and the order process, that does leak into other parts of the business including the actual service itself. So, you may find your service affected in random ways throughout the life of the service.  These problems may include, unintentional service disconnection, incorrect billing and invoicing including double billing and inaccurate billing to sporadic service quality and uninformed service outages and even installation issues resurfacing months or years later.  Disorganization affects far too many businesses.  Worse, most businesses don’t even recognize that they are affected, let alone do anything about it.  Bigger businesses are more prone to disorganization than smaller companies, but business of all sizes can and are affected.  With large companies, the departments and staff get more and more disconnected.  As the departments get bigger and more disconnected, employees adopt a ‘not my job’ mentality and once something reaches the limit of their job description, they push it off their desk with no thought to the customer’s relationship.  Once it’s pushed off their desk, they don’t really care what happens.  This can leave holes that let customers’ orders fall through the crack and not be serviced.

With small businesses, disorganization happens from immature processes and/or constantly shifting priorities. Also with small businesses, these companies are usually understaffed and that leaves the employees overworked.  So, instead of the service order falling into a black hole like a larger company, the order simply gets buried on the desk (or in email).  This results in lack of order tracking.  Effectively, big or small company, the problem is the same: a lost order.

Organizing: Documentation and Communication

Order taking doesn’t have to be a complex process.  It does, however, need a process.  In large companies, each department needs to be on the same page.  So, that means sales, billing, customer support and technical support all need to use the same system to reference order numbers.  Having multiple order tracking systems is ripe for failure in the order process.  There’s nothing worse than need three or four reference numbers to discuss an order. Worse, though, is when you call and they can’t even look up any of the order numbers and they resort to company names, service addresses and phone numbers.  Sometimes these don’t even work.   When nothing works to look up your account, that indicates either an incompetent service representative or fractured systems.  If you get a service rep who can’t seem to find your order, ask them for their name, thank them and call back.  When you get a new representative ask them to look up your order or company.  If they immediately find it, you should report the previous representative to their supervisor.  Representatives can sometimes intentionally prevent finding the company to get you off the phone faster.  These need to be reported.

Companies must recognize disorganization in order to fix it. Without recognizing this issue, the company cannot change their internal processes.  The processes must be streamlined from start to finish.  This is why many businesses adopt and use ISO 9000 standards certifications.  These certifications, while rigorous and somewhat costly to obtain and somewhat costly and rigorous to maintain, ensure a high quality customer experience from start to finish.  These certifications require that every department follow a blueprint each time they interact with customers.  A set of steps that always lead the customer through the same experience.  It sets quality standards from services and products and, again, it overall ensures a high quality customer experience.

Many larger companies require ISO certifications of their vendors.  This certification process ensures there is a commitment of quality and a level of organization associated with a company’s service offerings.  In other words, ISO certification immediately tells would-be buyers that they can expect a certain level of quality.  ISO certifications require each employee to write their processes down of how to properly work through their daily jobs.  Once these processes are documented, it’s easy to hand the documentation to new staff and have them follow these standards.  Standards set by a company ensures that products and services are efficiently provided.  Without any standards in place, this quickly leads to disorganization and haphazard and random methodologies in placing and managing the order process.   Without standards and processes in place, a company cannot provide high quality services as easily or consistently.

Communication with prospects is key to an order’s success.  If there is an issue with an order, there needs to be someone in the organization to manage these delays.  Someone should be tasked with keeping track of orders and managing (by contacting the customer) when there is to be a delay or an unexpected issue that may prevent an order from completing properly.  So, on top of the processes in place to make sure orders always take the same path, there needs to be a person to manage the order fully from start to finish.  Additionally, systems need to be interlinked properly so that Sales, Customer Service and Billing can be on the same page at the same time. There is nothing worse than calling in and asking about the progress of an order only to find out the order was cancelled from lack of communication.

As an update to an earlier Randosity article, I have upgraded my system to Windows 7 and then installed iTunes 9. Since making this change, I am no longer having the registry issue documented in this previous Randosity article. So, it may be worthwhile to upgrade your system to Windows 7 to alleviate this issue. Of course, it could be a fluke, but iTunes installed and started up without any issues on Windows 7. Before you upgrade, though, you’ll want to remove iTunes from your system, then run the upgrade to Windows 7, then reinstall iTunes 9. If you still experience registry issues with Windows 7 and iTunes 9, refer to this previous article for tips on what to do.

I’ve recently discussed what I do to help prevent the cold and flu virus, that one is the longer of these two articles.  So, this one will be much shorter.  If you do get a cold, the flu or even a throat infection, you can help reduce the symptoms by using a simple remedy: Zinc.  But, not just any zinc.  I personally use Zicam.  The reason I use Zicam is the formulations available.  While the zinc tablets work, they taste nasty and only coat your throat.  This can work, but I find that the other Zicam formulations work much better.

Gel Swabs

The Zicam gel swabs are my favorite to use.  The way this works is to swab the inside if your nostrils and then close the nostrils just briefly after swabbing.   Apparently, as I understand how this works, the zinc in Zicam kills viruses on contact and, at the same time, prevents new viruses from taking hold.  Since the viruses apparently start and multiply in the nasal cavity, the application of zinc coats your nasal passages and prevents the virus from taking hold and building full colonies.  So, the theory goes, the symptoms are reduced and the length of infection shortened.  For me, this works.

Reduction in symptoms

Whenever I get sick with a virus, I find that using zinc (Zicam variety) reduces sore throats from 5-7 days to about 2-3 days.  So, without zinc, the cold may last 2 weeks.  With Zicam, I find that my colds are over in about 7-9 days.  For me, the symptoms of the cold are greatly reduced as well.

Other zinc formulations

You may get similar results with the lozenges, but I prefer the Zicam formulations.  If another company begins making a similar formulation to the gel swabs, I may try those out. Right now it appears that Zicam is the only brand with this formulation.  I will say that I have also tried Zicam’s nasal spray and throat spray.  For the same reason that I don’t like the lozenges, I don’t like the throat spray (it tastes nasty).  As far as the nasal spray formulation, I don’t like spraying this up inside my nose due to irritation.  So, I stick with the swabs which simply coats the opening to your nose and doesn’t have taste or irritation problems.  Apparently, though, the gel does move up into the nose through breathing, but I don’t seem to feel it like I do with the spray.

So, for prevention, follow my previous article.  But, once you get sick, try using the Zicam gel swabs (or a knock off if you can find one) and see how well they work for you.  If they do nothing, don’t buy them again. But, if they reduce the severity of the symptoms, as I expect they will, then I find that it’s well worth the $12 for a box.

Now that flu season is upon us, I always like to take steps to prevent myself from getting infected from other people or items they may have touched.  While there is no magic bullet for this, here are some rules that I personally follow that may help you avoid getting the flu.

Wash your hands often with soap and warm water

Washing your hands frequently will eliminate most viruses and bacteria from your hands and prevent you getting them near your nose or mouth.  If you can wash your face while out, you should do this as well.

During winter months, do not purchase foods from serve-yourself open buffets

Eating off of salad bars at buffet-style restaurants or other communal type restaurants only serves to get you sick.   Instead, opt for ordering from the menu so the food is cooked in the kitchen and served to you directly.  This doesn’t eliminate the risk of getting sick, but it drastically reduces your chances because the plates will be clean and the food will be prepared fresh and hot.  A cook in the kitchen could be sick, but most better restaurants don’t allow sick cooks in the kitchen (it’s a liability, after all).  The fewer people who touch your food, the less chance you are to pick up a virus.

For this same reason, don’t buy foods in grocery stores from open buffet fill-it-yourself containers.  The reason for this rule is very clear.  Most buffet style places leave spoons out all day in containers and simply switch out the food leaving dirty utensils.  Thus, spoons may have been touched by hundreds of people.  By touching the spoon on the buffet table, you may be infecting yourself immediately.  The food itself may also harbor the flu or a cold virus simply from someone sneezing.  For sanitary reasons, avoid buffet serve-yourself meals during the winter to keep yourself healthier.

This covers both hot and cold food bars including olive bars.

As a side note about buffets.. Buffets are extremely unsanitary.  The required sneeze guards do nothing for children.  The guards are designed with adult height in mind.  So, a child can easily be face high to the food, yet their face is under the guard.  So, it’s easy for them to cough, laugh, sneeze or play around or even with the food or utensils.   Since children seem to be the prime carriers for cold and flu viruses, this makes buffets and other serve-yourself food tables very unsanitary. Instead, you should order from a menu at a table.  You should also ask the server if they plan on serving you food from the buffet table or if they plan on making it fresh.  You should always specify having them make it fresh in the kitchen instead of serving you from the buffet food.

Tanning beds and UV

While this next portion may seem unusual, it may actually prevent you from getting the flu or colds.  If you use a tanning bed, you may decrease your chances of actually contracting a virus or bacterial infection during the winter months.  UV is known to disinfect surfaces and kill bacteria and viruses.  So, using a tanning bed should kill viruses and bacteria on the surface of your skin, both hands and body.  You don’t necessarily need to use a tanning bed for the maximum time.  It may take as little as 1-3 minutes to successfully disinfect the surface of your skin (not necessarily enough time to tan you), although, likely enough time to kill viruses. Disinfecting the surface of your skin through UV should kill off any viruses you may have picked up through contact with other people.

However, once a virus has entered your nasal passages, you are already infected.  UV doesn’t penetrate deep enough to disinfect inside your body.  So, don’t tan once you are sick as it won’t help you and may only serve to dehydrate you even more than the virus already has.   Tanning can be dehydrating.  So, drink water after tanning.

How often you do this really depends on how often you are out in public with lots of people around you.  The longer you are out in public around potentially sick people, then you should tan at the end of the day to kill off anything you may have come in contact with.  You should tan at the end of the day rather than the beginning so you kill the viruses you may have gotten earlier that day.

Shower regularly with soap

Having good hygiene by showering will also wash of any viruses that may have landed on your skin.  So, shower regularly to reduce viruses and bacteria on the surface of your skin.  A reasonably hot shower or bath combined with soap is quite good at doing this.

Cover open wounds

If you have any cuts or open wounds, cover them properly with bandages.  Having an open wound is an invitation for viruses to enter.  Keep your cuts clean and keep them covered.  Also, using antibacterial ointments like Neosporin on wounds can reduce infection and may also kill off or prevent entry of viruses.

Don’t use public phones or public computers

If you must use public phones or computers, you should bring along some Windex wipes or other disinfecting towelettes to wipe down and disinfect the surface before using it.  Basically, you should avoid these devices or clean surfaces where the item could come in contact with your face (like a phone).  With public computers, you’re touching the keyboard and may then wipe your nose with your hands.  So, carry some disinfecting towelettes around during the winter months for quick disinfection.  Also, carrying hand sanitizer allows you to clean your hands immediately after touching such items or, alternatively, go the restroom and wash your hands.

Wipe down surfaces in your office

Because offices are where we spend most of the day, always wipe down your phone, desk and keyboard.  You never know when someone may sit down at your desk and temporarily use your space without your knowledge.  So, wipe and disinfect your space each day during the winter time.

Public transportation

While I know that public transit is very ‘green’ and, in some cases, cost effective, it can also be a place where you can get sick.  By sitting in seats where sick people may have been, you risk contracting the flu or cold viruses just by being there.  You may not be able to avoid the use of public transportation, but you can reduce your chances by standing up rather than sitting down.  If you stand on public transportation during the winter, you are not touching the seats where someone sick may have been sitting.  Holding the hand rail only, you can easily clean your hands with instant hand sanitizer once you exit.  So, carry a small sized hand sanitizer with you in winter months.  If you must sit, then avoid touching your face and use a hand sanitizer after you exit the transit.

If you notice someone coughing around you, move away from them (preferably to another car on a train) or further back if you are in a bus.  You can also get off at the next stop and simply wait for the next bus or train, if they are frequent enough.

For airplane transit, there’s not really much you can do here.  If there’s someone who is sick on a plane, you’re very likely to catch it.  So, the best bet is to limit travel to only necessary movement during winter months.

Avoid eating out often / order take-out if possible

Eating at any restaurant exposes you to viruses.  So, to avoid this risk, don’t eat out.  Instead, buy foods and cook for yourself.  Eating at home, there is no risk of becoming infected with a virus (except what you or your family brings home).  Because your home is basically a controlled environment, you can prevent getting sick by staying home more often in the winter.  If you really do want to eat out, take the food from the restaurant as takeout.  Order over the phone from home or your cell and then pick the food up after it’s ready.  This means you get exposed to almost nothing other than door handles and money handling.   So, use some hand sanitizer or wash your hands when you get home.

These are several of my rules that I choose to follow.  However, sometimes it isn’t always convenient to follow them.  So, you should wash your hands as the bare minimum to help reduce your chances of getting sick during the winter months.

Hell’s Kitchen

For those of you who like Reality TV shows like Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and Hell’s Kitchen, realize there is even more reality than what you see on the tube.  For example, in the First 2 Seasons of Hell’s Kitchen, the winners didn’t actually win what the show promised during the seasons.  The first season winner, Michael Wray, was to win his own restaurant, but the show didn’t deliver on that award.  Instead, he was awarded kitchen equipment and a trip to the UK to study under Ramsay.  He first accepted and then later declined the trip.  The second season winner, Heather West, was promised a newly built restaurant in Las Vegas in which she would have an investment stake and help design it.  This prize also never materialized.  Instead, she signed a one year contract to be Senior Chef at Terra Rossa (an existing restaurant) in Las Vegas.  After her contract terminated, she left and became Sous Chef on Hell’s Kitchen during Season 6.  Still, not the prize she had won.

It wasn’t until the third season that Hell’s Kitchen actually awarded the prize to Rock Harper that it had announced all season.  He became Head Chef of Green Valley Ranch’s Terra Verde. Of course, the question remains, was it just a limited stint for Rock like it was for Heather?  Only time will tell.  Fast Forward… The award for Season 6 was to be ‘Head Chef’ at the Araxi in British Columbia.  Unfortunately, the restaurant began to get cold feet at the start of Season 6 after seeing the contestants.   So, Ramsay apparently had to talk with the owner to quell any fears that there would be a competent winner.  Unfortunately, Araxi had already made up its mind.  The winner of Season 6 (Dave) will simply become an ‘employee’ and not ‘Head Chef’.  So, once again, Hell’s Kitchen has not delivered on its announced award.

I also have to wonder about those other award winners.  Did they only somewhat win or slightly win?  At least Hell’s Kitchen should award cash and tangible prizes.   As long as the sponsorship remains, the prizes will be there. Top Chef got that one right at least.

Kitchen Nightmares

Kitchen Nightmares, on the other hand, is its own nightmare.  Of course, it doesn’t help that Ramsay attempts to save restaurants on the brink of collapse.  Needless to say, in the 2 US seasons of this show and of the 13 he’s tried saving in New York, only 5 are still in business.  Sebastian’s in LA has also closed.  Most of the failed restaurant owners blame Ramsay and Ramsay blames the owners for not following his advice.  The reality is probably somewhere in the middle combined with the economy.  The downturn has taken its toll on lots of places, including restaurants.  Fine dining is quite expensive.  So, people are cutting back and eating more frugally.   It doesn’t help that most of these ailing turned failing restaurants really had no regulars anyway.  So, giving it a coat of paint and a new menu is probably not enough.  Their reputation was already tarnished.

Of course, Kitchen Nightmares also pays to have people dine at the restaurant so that it appears as though it might succeed.  The reality, of course, is far different.  This is all Hollywood smoke and mirrors.  After the cameras stop rolling and the production is no longer paying diners, the restaurant goes back to its old dismal self (bad sales and all).  Basically, polishing poop doesn’t make it better.

Makes You Wonder

I have to wonder just how many more reality game or fix-it shows really work after the dust settles and the cameras are gone.  With shows like Trading Spaces and Bridezilla, is it only about the cameras and drama?  Does the ‘reality’ really mean anything.  After the cameras stop, it’s really not that exciting.  In fact, when the cameras are rolling, it’s not that exciting.  That’s why they hire excellent editors to take random shots and intercut them together.  For that reason alone, that’s how Tek, who was eliminated much earlier in Hell’s Kitchen, can reappear in an episode where she shouldn’t have been.

Smoke and Mirrors

Remember, Hollywood is all about appearances.  Appearance is the only thing that matters.  As long as its glitzy and offers some drama, Hollywood assumes people will watch.  To some degree, I guess that thinking is valid. But, once you realize that it’s only smoke and mirrors, then it becomes just fluff.  For me, that’s not really enough to keep watching.

I have been successfully placed by a recruiter once in my career.  After that, I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with recruiters.  The main problem with technology recruiters isn’t necessarily with the recruiting itself.  It’s the human element that always gets in the way.  A recruiter’s bottom line is the commission they will receive when they place a candidate.  This commission, unfortunately, drives the entire placement process.  When a recruiter’s sole motivation is based on money, the candidate and the hiring company both get the short end of the stick.

Case in point, I have used recruiters for the last two or three jobs I’ve attempted to land.  In nearly every case, the recruiters  misrepresented the job to me in the phone interviews.  So, when a recruiter sent me on an interview, the job was clearly not a match for my skills.   Basically, either the job was entirely wrong based on my skills or I had specifically told the recruiter not to place me in that industry or job type.  Yet, there I was, interviewing where I shouldn’t have.  This ends up as a wild goose chase. When I explain that to the recruiter, they get defensive and blame me for the ‘bad interview’.  It wasn’t bad, it was just a mismatch because of the recruiter’s lack of skill or inability to listen.  But, this comes back to the commission.  Once the commission dollars become a reality in their mind, the recruiter puts blinders on.  They then attempt to force a square peg into a round hole to avoid losing that cash.

That’s not to say that there aren’t sincere recruiters out there.  I’m sure there are some.  But, the recruiting industry is so filled with inexperienced recruiters only willing to make a buck that you can’t tell the difference between who is sincere and who isn’t.  It’s not like recruiting is regulated or has any grading system.  So there is no method for you, the candidate, to determine just how a specific staffing firm works.

The one recruiting game that gets to me is when recruiters simply resume collect to fill a database, but have no intention of placing you.  Robert Half (RHI) is notoriously bad for this.  They’ll collect your resume, ask you to step into their offices for a ‘face to face’ and additionally ask you to spend an hour or longer filling out paperwork.  After you’ve done this for them, they never call you back.  That’s such a waste of time.  So, instead of wasting  a day at their offices, the candidate could have better spent that time sending out resumes to actual employers and going on legitimate interviews with direct employers.

Other tactics from recruiters include them finding a job posting on the Internet, collecting resumes and contacting qualified candidates.  Only after they have the candidates in hand do they then try to lasso in the employer.  So, they string the candidate along thinking they have a chance at the position when they haven’t even talked with the hiring company about the position.  Once the hiring company turns down the recruiter, this is when the recruiter stops calling the candidate and stops taking your calls.  This is yet another colossal waste of time.  These become very apparent when you get two or three recruiters calling to recruit for the same hiring company and same position.  In a typical recruiting engagement, the hiring company only allows one recruiter to recruit for the position.  When multiple recruiters are recruiting for the same position, either the hiring company doesn’t understand the process or the recruiters are not on retainer.

When choosing to work with recruiters, be cautious and ask lots of questions.  They do attempt to be the candidate’s advocate, but usually only to the point that they don’t lose their commission.  If losing their commission becomes a reality, recruiters can become desperate in the relationship between the candidate and the hiring  company.  In fact, a working recruiter relationship can turn sour in about 30 seconds once the candidate or hiring company expresses disinterest.  This is when the recruiter’s professionalism is tested.  If the recruiter keeps pushing the candidate or the hiring company after disinterest has been expressed, that behavior is not professional.  It also shows just how much the recruiter values their commission over a properly filled position.

For a recruiter, it’s much more valuable to place a qualified candidate in the proper position than collecting recruiting commission.  But, many recruiters turn desperate when the square peg won’t fit into the round hole.  On the other hand, some recruiters just don’t care.  They’ll attempt to place anyone in any position just to fill their quota.

It can be difficult to find a recruiter who is actively willing to work on your behalf as a candidate.  If you find one, stick with them.  Keep in mind, however, that they are all working on commission, so placement of you fills their (and the recruiting firm’s) bank account.  That money motivation can cause the recruiter to do things they would not otherwise do.  Finding the most suitable job for you should be their number one priority.  Unfortunately, it isn’t always the case.

A new study conducted with mice that the WHO has latched onto and  that I’ve yet to read, now classifies sunbeds specifically and all UV exposure at the highest risk of causing skin cancer (on par with Tobacco).  I’m not sure what prompted this change in view, other than a single study, but they have made this change.  Clearly, one study is not enough to make this determination, but that is exactly what the World Health Organization is doing.  There must be some subtext here that’s prompting this change.  Perhaps the sunscreen industry is losing more money to people choosing to tan rather than buy and slather on the sunscreen.

The WHO claims that “It has been estimated that a sunbed tan offers the same protective effect as using a sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of only 2-3.”  I’d guess that most lighter skinned people can only produce a tan (in a sunbed or outdoors) that protects you 2-3 times the amount you normally could stay outside.  Without a tan, if you can stay out 1 hour without burning/tanning, then with a tan you can stay outside 2-3 hours without burning or substantially tanning.  That’s fairly significant.  The WHO shrugs it off as miniscule.  Compared to SPF 50,  it is miniscule.  But realize, that even at 15 minutes max time outdoors without sunscreen, there aren’t 12.5 hours of sunlight in a day when using SPF 50. So, SPF 50 is overkill for most people.  I’d also venture to guess that the WHO’s SPF 2-3 tan protection estimation is on the low side.  Yes, if you only tan once a week in a bed and get only a very light tan, that might only make an SPF of 2-3.  But, if you get a darker tan, then it will be a lot more protective perhaps up to 4-6 depending on color.  Of course, how much melanin you can produce will also dictate how strong your protection is.  Note that all skin colors will eventually burn, even the darkest tones.  The question is, how long does it take?

The WHO’s SPF arguments completely discount the fact that a tan is full spectrum UV protection and, instead, suggests reliance on the sunscreens to protect you.  What is this nonsense?  Sunscreens are nowhere near full spectrum protection.  In fact, most suncreens only really protect you from UVB and many provide limited or non-existent protection to UVA.  Many UVA blocking chemicals wear off or degrade far faster than UVB protection.  So, even while you may not burn with the UVB protection, your UVA protection may have worn off 10 minutes ago.  A tan is visible, you can see it.  Sunscreen is invisible, you can’t see it.  A tan that you can see, you know is working.  A sunscreen that you can’t see, you can’t know that it’s working.  So, you have to reapply at least every 30 minutes to 1 hours to ensure constant protection.

For SPF, consider this.  There are 8-10 major sunlit hours in the day.  If you have an SPF of 3 and can stay out 1 hour without burning, that means you can stay out 3 hours without burning with SPF 3 protection.   How often do people stay outdoors longer than 3 hours in direct sunlight?  Of the places that come to mind, I see an amusement park, a waterpark or perhaps at the beach surfing.  These three  situations can easily kill more than 4 hours outdoors.  So, in these instances, you wouldn’t want to rely on a tan alone to protect you even if you had an extremely dark tan.  But, of the three, two are water activities where sunscreens don’t really work well.  So, with outdoor water activities, having a tan is far more helpful than using sunscreens that continually wash off.

Benefits outweigh Risks

William B. Grant (Sunlight, Nutrition, and Health Research Center (SUNARC), San Francisco, CA, USA) suggests in his December 2008 article that the benefits of UV exposure outweigh any risks that UV might impose.  For example, he states,

“Humanity’s relation to solar UVB and vitamin D should first be put into the biological perspective. Solar UVB has always been the primary source of vitamin D for life on Earth. On the other hand, UV can damage DNA and generate free radicals, as well as destroy folate in the skin. As a result, skin pigmentation adapted to prevailing solar UV doses where people lived for many generations: very dark in equatorial plains regions, brown in tropical forests and subtropical locations, and very light in high-latitude European locations (Jablonski and Chaplin, 2000). Many people now may live where their skin is too light for prevailing UV doses, resulting in increased risk of skin cancer, or too dark, leading to vitamin D deficiencies.”

Assuming that UV and skin cancer are linked conclusively, his argument suggests another reason for higher incidence of skin cancer.  Because the world is literally an open travel destination, peoples from all over the world are now moving to regions they would not normally inhabit.  Thus, lighter skinned people are moving to regions with more UV exposure than normal for their protection level. Darker skinned people are becoming vitamin D deficient because UV isn’t strong enough when they move to less sunny areas.

Of UV exposure, Mr. Grant also writes,

“The benefits of UVB irradiance and vitamin D extend well beyond cancer. There is mounting evidence that vitamin D also reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases (Dobnig et al., 2008). The benefits for UVB irradiance accrue even in youth, as reported for bone development (Lamberg-Allardt and Viljakainen, 2008), multiple sclerosis (Grant, 2008; van der Mei et al., 2003), breast cancer (John et al., 2007b), and prostate cancer (John et al., 2007a). One reason for an early-life benefit is that vitamin D increases absorption of calcium, which reduces the risk of cancer (Lappe et al., 2007; Peterlik and Cross, 2005).”

On the one hand, you have the WHO claiming ‘tanning beds’ are the highest risk for cancer (especially for those under 30) and on the other you have the benefits of vitamin D (especially during early years) that help reduce your chances of cancer and aid in health.  These statements are very opposing.  In fact, evidence suggests that UV exposure also aids in the reduction of other illnesses.   Of the benefits of Vitamin D, Mr Grant again states,

“Also, vitamin D strengthens the innate immune system against both bacterial and viral infections through the production of human cathelicidin, LL-37 (Aloia and Li-Ng, 2007; Hewison, 2008), thereby reducing the risk of viral infections such as Epstein–Barr virus that lead to other diseases such as multiple sclerosis and several types of cancer (Grant, 2008).”

And he states that 1000-2000 IU of Vitamin D per day can aid in the reduction of  other diseases and of contracting viruses including “… seasonal influenza and the common cold (Aloia and Li-Ng, 2007).”  I can attest to that.  UV exposure has kept me from getting the flu or a cold for the last two years running.

Sunlight

Humans have enjoyed sunlight since the beginning.  To now claim that natural sunlight is more dangerous than a chemical bath in sunscreen products is basically ridiculous.  Let’s actually do some studies to determine if sunscreen chemicals are truly long-term safe, shall we?  I digress.  If sunlight were truly as carcinogenic as the WHO puts forth in their very alarmist announcement, then humans would not exist today and we would have been one big heap of skin cancer.  Yet, that hasn’t happened.  So, then the question becomes, what has changed?  What are we now doing that we weren’t doing years ago?  I think the answer is in the all of the manmade products and foods that we consume.  The unnaturalness of working in closed indoor spaces instead of being outdoors.   Of course, this includes Mr. Grant’s argument of inhabiting regions with higher doses of UV.  So, when we do go outdoors to play, we get badly burned and we effectively have no protection.

Other sources of UV

There are other incidental sources of UV that you may also not be aware.  If you work in an office building or perhaps even in your home, fluorescent bulbs have become extremely common place.  While the UV that emanates from these bulbs is not as strong as those in tanning beds, they still give off UV.  Haven’t you ever wondered why plants love to be under fluorescent lights?  That’s the answer.. UV.  So, while there isn’t enough UV exposure from these fluorescents to actually tan you, there is enough exposure throughout an 8 hour day to account for higher incidence of skin cancer in individuals.  These fluorescent lamps may even be in your home in the new ‘energy saver’ bulbs.  So, you may also be further exposing yourself to additional UV without even knowing it.

WHO warns only targeted UV sources

If the WHO wants to exclaim warnings, they need to exclaim them in the proper places.  Right now, they are unfairly targeting tanning beds and tanning salons when natural sunlight falls directly under their warning.  They make no mention of UV from office building flourescent bulbs.  Awardspace.com describes standard fluorescent lamps:

“Fluorescent lamps illuminate 71% of the commercial space in the United States. Most fluorescent lighting gives off UV radiation. Inside the tube, fluorescent lights are pure ultraviolet (UV). Passing through the coating of the tube, they change to  visible light (spikes of violet, green and blue) and are not “supposed” to give off UV radiation, but some leaks out.  There are special filters that can be purchased to block UV light, but most businesses don’t install the filters because of cost.  The filter is a panel that allows light through, but blocks the UV radiation. [Sewell]“

Note that UV exposure is cumulative.  So, sitting under fluorescent lights every day for 8-10 hours is probably equivalent to being out in the sun for several hours.  Note that what’s blocked appears to be mainly UVB or else everyone would go home sunburned every day.  So, what’s left that comes out of the bulbs is likely the longer UVA waves.  These are the UV sources that account for skin aging and sun damage and potentially skin cancer.

William B. Grant quotes from the WHO’s very own web site:

“Ultraviolet radiation (UVR) exposure is a minor contributor to the world’s disease burden, causing an estimated annual loss of 1.6 million (disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs)); i.e. 0.1% of the total global disease burden. A markedly larger annual disease burden, 3.3 billion DALYs, might result from reduction in global UVR exposure to very low levels.” –WHO Review via William B. Grant

Let’’s read that again… diseases from UVR exposure (i.e., skin cancer) account for 0.1% of the total global disease burden! Yet, from the WHO’s announcement, they would have you think that it’s nearly all of the world’s disease burden.  The bottom line is, even if the WHO could manage to get every tanning salon in the world closed, the incidence of skin cancer would not likely drop as dramatically as they would think.  First, sunlight is still readily available.  Second, there are plenty of other unexpected UV sources (like office lighting) that go unchecked.  But, even the WHO cautioned that reducing UVR exposure to very low levels might result in a ‘markedly larger annual disease burden’ (due to the lack of vitamin D).  So, the timing of this increase in the risk levels is odd and must have some other subtext that’s pushing it through.  One thing is quite clear, this warning clearly targets tanning beds and tanning salons.  Because this notice clearly intends to target tanning salons and tanning beds, the question then remains as to the motivation behind this announcement at this time.