The ‘Net has sure allowed for some very interesting ways of doing business. My primary designer/developer for Thoughts Media lives in Italy. I just hired a developer in India, through Elance, to develop a script to allow me to upload and manage wallpaper images over at Zune Thoughts. Offshore hiring might be a problem if you’re the one getting underbid by people doing devleopment for $10 an hour, but if you’ve got a small business like mine and you have a limited budget, but have big goals, hiring help from other spots in the world - where your dollar goes further - is your only option. And it’s not like this is new - before companies started going offshore, they’d use interns or students for less expensive workplace help. I’m looking forward to seeing how this turns out…

Another week has gone by, and it looks like I’m still going to be without the gear I need to get up and running. Velocity Micro was supposed to ship out a replacement PC (this would be the third) on Monday AM to arrive in time for Wednesday. On Tuesday I emailed them and they said they’d have it going out the door on Wednesday for arrival on Thursday or Friday. Then when I emailed them on Wednesday to ask if it was shipped, they said they were having trouble with the machine and they would try to fix the problem and get it out to me for delivery by Friday. Today I emailed them and the machine is now finished and has been passed off to their shipping department, but that means it will only get picked up today in the best-case scenario - so I’m looking at Monday or Tuesday at best. It’s sad that on the 22nd of December I was supposed to setting up this computer.

XFX, the video card company that I’m waiting on a card from, said on the 24th of January that my replacement card would be going out “soon”. Then a few days later they admitted to me that they don’t even have the 7600GS in stock - the video card with passive cooling that I ordered specifically because it was silent. They said they’d ship me a 7800GT, a card with a noisy-ass fan. No good I said, I need a passively cooled, silent card. They said ok, we’ll ship you a 7800GT with a fan. Yes, they suggested that same card that I already refused. I then asked for a 7950 GT, the next passively cooled card they offer. It’s a more expensive card, but since they can’t replace the card I sent them, it seems fair they should give me whatever card matches the last card the closest. They’re checking with their inventory department to see if they have one of those cards in stock - so at least they didn’t say no right off the bat.

Another weekend without being able to set up my office properly. All is not wasted though, I have finish setting up our TV room in anticipation of the UFC 67 fight on Saturday night. We assembled the Toshiba TV stand the other night (more or less the right way ;-)), so now it’s a matter of pumping it all through the sound system so we can watch the first UFC fight to be broadcast in high-definition. It’s gonna’ be sweet on that big 72″ Toshiba TV!