Cobb on Technology

iTunes - Podcasts - DEFCON 3

2011-12-27T22:12:00.000-05:00

iTunes - Podcasts - DEFCON 3 [Audio] Speeches from the Hacker Convention. by The Dark Tangent

DEFCON 3 was held August 4-6th 1995 at the Tropicana in Las Vegas. Past speeches and talks from DEF CON hacking conferences in an iTunes friendly m4b format.

Will Christmas Kindles Torch the Internet and Evaporate the Amazon Cloud?

2011-12-24T03:39:00.002-05:00

I got an Amazon Kindle Fire from my wife for Christmas and I'm a bit worried about the effect on the Internet. I should explain that I got my Fire a few weeks ago because my wife and I like to give each other digital gifts before Christmas Day so that by the time Christmas Day arrives we have said devices fully configured and can actually play with them (I got her an iPhone 4S).

The problem I see is that Amazon has been selling about one million of these Fire things a week and many of them may not be fired up, so to speak, until Christmas Day. Here's what happened after I fired up my Kindle Fire: It gave me instructions on how to put my music in the cloud, and store it there for free, and those instructions were very easy to follow, so my laptop was soon engaged in uploading 6,471 files. Engaged as in "I need to spend several days trying to do this."

When it was done, those files added up to over 30 gigabytes of data, sitting in the cloud somewhere, ready for me to listen to them at the tap of a screen. Now imagine 2 million people getting a Fire for Christmas and accepting that invitation to put their music in the cloud. Suppose they each have, on average, 20 gigabytes of music. That's 40 million gigabytes or 40 petabytes added to the cloud and Internet traffic on Christmas Day. I hope Capacity Planning at Amazon.com has been doing some planning. And those folks who manage the tubes, they better be ready to put out some fires.

CyberMonday SmartPhone Shopping Tip: Avoid CA, MA, RI, and maybe others

2011-11-28T18:54:00.001-05:00

This is a quick tip for anyone looking to buy a new iPhone or other smartphone this holiday season:

Don't buy in California, Massachusetts, or Rhode Island.

If you are in one of those states and can cheaply get to another state, or happen to be passing through another state on business or to visit family, you can save $40 or more if you purchase your phone out of state.

Why? The answer is in small print at the Apple store and--possibly in different words--on some mobile provider sites:

In CA, MA, and RI, sales tax is collected on the unbundled price of iPhone.

In other words, you might be getting a great deal on the phone but these states charge you sales tax as though you did not get a great deal, and that's a bum deal.

Consider that the Apple iPhone 4S series has unbundled prices of $649, $749, and $849 for the 16MB, 32MB, and 64MB models respectively. That means a sales tax of 7.75% on the 16MB 4S you buy from AT&T or Apple for $199 comes in at $50 versus the $15.42 you were probably expecting. That's sticker shock if you have not been through this process before.

RIP: The Golden Age of Unlimited Internet, It's Been Capped

2011-10-22T20:50:00.002-04:00

The golden age of unlimited Internet is over, capped usage is now the norm. Alas for uncapped bandwidth, uncapped bandwidth is no more, and this has serious implications for everything from programming to data security and economics.

Soliloquies aside, the pleasure of making a prediction that comes true--I have said for some time that all bandwidth will eventually be capped and metered--is often undermined by the reality of what one predicted. (For example, about every new form of data abuse I have said "Typically, this is going to get worse before it gets better" and I am, sadly too often, correct in that assessment.)

I have written extensively about bandwidth capping in the context of both satellite Internet service and 3G Internet service. I have lived with daily bandwidth caps in the 400 megabyte range, courtesy of HughesNet's premium $80 per month satellite service. I have lived with the AT&T MiFi 3G cap of 5 gigabytes a month or 166 megabytes per day (for $60 per month). Apparently I am now going to live with the 200 gigabytes per month cap of Cox Cable Preferred Internet Service, currently $40 per month.

Of course, it is clear that 200 gigabytes for $40 is a better deal than 5 for $60 or 12 for $80 (if you multiply the 400 megabytes per day that HughesNet 'gives' you by 30 days you get 12 gigabytes, but in reality you seldom get 12 gigabytes because you keep daily use below that, worried that you will exceed your cap, which costs $10 to reset every time you blow through it with a big download or streaming audio/video).

What is wrong about Cox Cable's cap, and I have to use wrong rather than a softer touch like "questionable" or dubious" or "unfortunate," is that Cox Cable does not disclose its cap before you contract for Cox service. I know this because I just went through the labyrinthine process of getting Cox Cable service in San Diego. While everyone from Cox with whom I have spoken has been very polite, friendly, and helpful, nobody said "That comes with a 200 gigabyte per-month cap and we reserve the right to charge you more money if you go over that."

Nobody. Not the first time I placed my order, nor the second time I placed my order because the first order went astray. In other words, Cox had ample opportunity to mention the cap and the consequences of exceeding it. They did not. Given the otherwise articulate and engaging nature of the service personnel that Cox puts on the line, I tend to assume they are trained not to say anything about the cap.

So, the cap is here. It is not disclosed. And next I fear, it will be reduced. Once we are all hooked on whatever bandwidth consuming activity floats our boat, be it streaming video, audio, online gaming, hi-def photography, video calls, or something as yet not deployed, the bandwidth providers will start clamping down, shrinking the cap and raising the rates. So here are some potential implications:

Using the Internet will cost more in the future, not less. We will pay per gig, not per month.
Deployment of any security services that use bandwidth will meet resistance or get turned off if people are paying per gig.
The rich will get more Internet than the poor (and of course the poor will get poor and the rich will get richer, a golden rule pretty much everywhere, from the USSR to the US of A).
Programs that use bloated code or content will be penalized by bad reviews.
Apps that are coded efficiently and elegantly will prevail.

I recently had the honor of speaking to a group of computer science students at the Jacobs School of engineering at UCSD. One topic we got into was the need to keep code lean. I mentioned to them a very interesting article that was mentioned to me by my good friend (and computer scientist extraordinaire) David Brussin and written by someone in Australia who also has to deal with bandwidth limitations, Troy Hunt.

The amount of 'bloat' that Troy found in iOS apps will surprise many, but it really wasn't a surprise to me. Why? Because my wife and I have used an iPad on a capped--and thus closely monitored--satellite Internet connection for over a year. We know how far the needle jumps when you add an iPad to your wireless Internet device mix. I fear the time will come when we pay dearly for that, by the megabyte.

p.s. Just noticed this report: Sprint is slowly but surely killing unlimited data

Quick Tip: How to Change the IE8 Default Search Provider from Bing to Google or Other

2011-09-13T20:26:00.001-04:00

This tip is for the relatively small number of people who are running Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 and cannot seem to change the default search provider, that's the one found in the Search box at the top right of the program window. By default this is Bing but I prefer Google.

I recently ran into a problem trying to change this on a system I was using. The process for making the change that was described in the Help for IE8 did not work, but after some digging I found something that did work for me. It is actually a service provided by Microsoft. Basically, you go to the following web page and follow the instructions labeled "Create Your Own" on the right (this can be used to add just about any search engine as your default):

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/searchguide/en-en/default.mspx

You may need to close IE8 and then reload it for the change to take effect. Of course, you might ask why I didn't just upgrade from IE8 to IE9, but this was not my computer, just a computer I was using. However, I would agree there are some good reasons to upgrade to IE9, as described by my brother, Mike Cobb, in this article: Is Internet Explorer 9 security better than alternative browsers?

Not Happy With AT&T? The network of possible reasons is expanding

2011-06-12T19:02:00.005-04:00

As a consumer, few things annoy me as much as TV ads extolling the virtues of something that is currently not working right, like AT&T's 3G data service. About this time yesterday I went to the AT&T web page that tells me how much of the 5 gigabytes-per-month 3G data plan on my MiFi wireless access point I have used. Simply going to this page is a fine example of how to: A. annoy your customers, B. tarnish your brand. Why?

1 .The Mobile Hotspot MiFi 2372 data device for which I paid $100 is treated like a cellphone in all AT&T literature (it is not a cellphone) so I have to log into a secure page to find how much of my $60 per month 5 gigabyte data allowance I have used, even when I am connecting from the device itself.

B. The first thing the page says is that information about my minutes is not available. Duh! This MiFi device has no minutes, it just has data. The info about the data usage is below the fold. This gives me zero confidence that AT&T knows what it is doing when it comes to mobile data services.

C. I have to do this any time I want to check my usage, which is sometimes multiple times a day because AT&T keeps sending me emails warning that I am about to go over my limit even when I am nowhere near my limit. (But they will charge me if I go over the limit).

D. I get logged out of the data usage page after a few minutes "for security reasons" which means that I cannot leave the page on the screen and monitor usage in real time. (Speaking as a CISSP, I see no reason to consider my data usage protected information, and no reason for my provider to deny me constant access to it.)

Even HughesNet, the satellite Internet service provider whose service levels and bandwidth caps I have lambasted in the past, does a better job of keeping me informed, in real time and with little effort, of my bandwidth usage relative to their daily cap.

This might sound like an obscure issue with a niche product, but I believe it is the shape of things to come. Bandwidth caps are the norm for 3G and soon 4G and maybe for other services too. Consumers of capped bandwidth need ways to monitor their usage to avoid additional charges. Putting on my marketing and branding cap I would say that cynical consumers will assume that those providers of capped bandwidth who make it tough to monitor usage are hoping to rake in the extra fees for going over the limit.

Now here's the real kicker: The usage page was down yesterday. That's the page that tells me how much data I have used. And it remains down 24 hours later. Today I got another "High Usage Data Alert" email from AT&T but had to place a voice call to check my usage. It took the AT&T person who assisted me several minutes to figure out what I meant by "How much data have I used?" Then she told me I had nothing to worry about because my monthly usage cycle had started over today, the 12th. To which I replied: "Yes, I know that is what is supposed to happen, but I just got a warning message, at 4PM today, the 12th, telling me my usage was high."

To which she replied "I apologize for that, it was sent because you were nearing your limit yesterday."

This rendered me temporarily speechless because I couldn't decide which aspect of the absurdity I wanted to highlight first. So when she asked "Is there anything else I can help you with?" my response was simply to ask when the web page would be coming back. Her reply: "They're working on it but we have no exact time."

And then I turned on the television to see an AT&T ad about the amazing "network of possibilities" with AT&T data networks. I suppose one possibility is that AT&T may get a clue about how to deliver useful and accurate data to its customers in a timely fashion. Designing a more practical 3G MiFi/WiFi device might also be a possibility. Watch this space for a review of the Novatel 2372, the first device to inflict a five colored LED on color blind computer users.

Give Back a Bit: Fixing the "Read More" problem in Blogger posts

2011-05-15T14:47:00.003-04:00

I just found a problem in Blogger with the Read More jump feature, then I fixed it thanks to some helpful souls out there on the internets. You can see the thing I'm talking about if you view this post on the home page of the blog. The first part of the post appears on the home page of the blog but the rest of the post is not visible until you click the link that says "Click here to read the rest of the story..."

This was just not working on this blog before I fixed it today. The link, referred to as a jump and often denoted by More or Read more, did not appear, so there was no easy way to get from the home page to the rest of the story (you couldn't even see that the rest of the story existed).

Apparently this problem exists with some Blogger templates and not others. Using Google I found a solution and it is listed below the jump on this story. I wanted to thank the person who wrote the fix but his blog seems to have disappeared, so I am repeating the fix and thanking "swathipradeep," whom I assume is Swathi Pradeep, for coming up with this code and sharing it.

If you are having this problem with your Blogger blog then here is how you fix it (instructions created by Swathi Pradeep):

1. Back up your template code by downloading it: Go to the Design tab and select Edit HTML, then click Download Full Template. Save to your hard drive. This allows you to get back to the original template if something goes wrong.

2. After backing up your template, click the Expand Widget Templates check box (or tick the tick box if you're a Brit). Now scan your HTML for the following snippet (I used the Ctrl-F shortcut for Find):

<data:post.body/>

Once you've located that code, paste the following snippet directly below it:

<b:if cond='data:post.hasJumpLink'> 
<div class='jump-link'> 
<a expr:href='data:post.url + "#more"'><data:post.jumpText/></a> 
</div> 
</b:if >

As I have said before and will probably be saying again: I feel like I don't give back enough when it comes to the zillions of tech tips like these that I need/find/use to do my work/play. So I'm going to try to do better. I came up with GeeBaB as an acronym for Give Back a Bit and I will endeavor to geebab more useful tech learnings in the future.

Ironically, I ran into a problem trying to present the above tip because of Blogger's rather primitive display of code text. How did I get around the problem? I read about a dozen web pages offering solutions and decided the best one was these boxes to display code, as described in this post at BlogKori, Thanks!

Satellite Internet Service: Amazing technology but not broadband (and why that matters more and more)

2011-05-06T11:36:00.011-04:00

A new report on satellite Internet service has just been published by the Rural Mobile and Broadband Alliance, or RuMBA (clever name, huh!). This free whitepaper, full of table, illustrations, and extensive references, is worth reading if you are:

A nerd or geek like me
Ever wondered how this satellite Internet thing worked
Have an interest in computer security
Live in a rural area
Care about the future of rural America
All of the above

Disclaimer: I wrote this paper (all 22 pages of it) in my spare time, as a way to help rural communities like the one in which I live. So there is an agenda in my plugging this white paper, but no financial incentive. RuMBA is a not-for-profit group (and for the moment I'm a fairly unprofitable person).

As I say in the paper, the fact that satellite Internet service works at all is a major technological achievement. I just have a problem with the idea that satellite Internet service is being touted in some quarters as a way to provide rural communities with access to broadband.

I don't want to give anything away, because I really do want people to read this paper, but satellite Internet is not and can never be a substitute for proper broadband service. By "proper broadband service" I mean something that can support a data center or at least deliver a high-availability, low-latency, uncapped connection at speeds of more than 10Mbps.

Satellite might have a role to play as the connection of last resort for people living in truly remote areas far from paved roads and other infrastructure, but I see no good reason why homes and businesses that already have telephone service should not also have broadband connectivity. For example, it makes no sense to me that a village on a state highway less than 50 miles from the capital of New York should not have broadband, especially when it is just a few miles from the nearest broadband connection point and already has a fiber optic cable running right through it. And there are hundreds of examples like this.

As a technologist who also pays taxes I am also very concerned that the federal government has seen fit to give tens of millions of dollars of broadband stimulus money to satellite companies who clearly, according to the definitive and categorical conclusions of this 22-page report, do not deliver broadband.

If you agree with me that broadband access is important for farming families and the people who live in rural areas to support them (doctors, nurses, teachers, merchants, and so on) then please bear in mind that things are only going to get worse if we don't act now to deliver genuine broadband to these folks. Every metric out there points to a coming boom in Internet video and other rick media as a way of interacting with consumers, businesses, schools, and healthcare providers. If communities are hurting right now because they only have dialup or satellite, and I believe they are, there are really going to be hurting a year or two from now.

For example, a Cisco report last October indicated that the average traffic over a broadband connection increased 31% in the previous 12 months, generating 14.9 gigabytes of Internet traffic a month. If that trend continues, and a recovering economy strongly suggests it will, the average traffic number will reach 20 gigabytes a month by the end of this year, way more than most satellite Internet users are allowed (without substantial added cost or inconvenience).

BTW, there is a lot of information on this subject over at the Rural Mobile and Broadband Alliance website. I encourage you to check it out. You may also want to follow RuMBA's founder @HandemRuMBA on Twitter and tune in to the Rural America Radio Show on Blog Talk Radio

Queer Codes? All about QR 2D barcodes

2011-04-28T17:48:00.002-04:00

Have you noticed more of these strange symbols lately? These are QR codes or 2D bar codes. They store information, a lot of information. Whereas a regular barcode that is made up of lines can store 30 numbers, a 2D QR can store 7,089 numbers!

I happen to know this because of a great article on the subject that I just read: Top 14 Things Marketers Need to Know About QR Codes by fellow Search Engine Watch columnist Angie Schottmuller. This article appears in the April 26 issue of Search Engine Watch and they bill it is as: "a great crash course on tools, tactics, and best practices to confidently help you jumpstart a 2D barcode marketing campaign." And I agree wholeheartedly.

The article is also a good general introduction to the technology and why people are using it. Since one goal of this blog is to make technology more accessible I thought I would highlight Angie's article for that reason. And that makes one less article I have to write, which is good, because I know that someone, at some point, is going to ask me: Stephen, what's a QR code? Now I can simply point them in Angie's direction.

The Iron Chip: A good example of "biology meets computer" via microarray

2011-04-24T13:32:00.003-04:00

Got to love hyperlinking. It takes you to so many interesting places. Like this lecture on a common genetic disorder which also explains how chips called microarrays can be made to detect biological substances, like proteins.

This one hour video-taped lecture from one of the world’s leading experts on the subject, Professor Martina Muckenthaler, PhD., Head of Molecular Medicine at the University of Heidelberg is a real geek-treat. What is particularly like about this video is:

a. the professor’s superb pedagogical style as she leads her audience of university students from a simple introduction to hemochromatosis to a detailed explanation of its mechanisms at the molecular level, followed by the technology she has been developing to perform her research.

b. the English subtitles, which are very well done and a great example of going the extra mile to share knowledge and information.

Even if you watch just the first 15 minutes you will get a good sense of why the world needs to know more about haemochromatosis (the British English version of the spelling is used in the subtitles). Hemochromatosis is not easy to explain and I'm speaking as one who has spent a lot of time trying to explain it (mainly because my wife has it). So I was delighted to encounter this video in my ongoing ferreting out of useful information about this debilitating, frequently misdiagnosed, and potentially fatal condition.

Every person needs to do as much self-education as possible when it comes to their health. For example, if you have learned through genetic testing that you have mutant alleles of the HFE gene (C282Y and H63D) then this video will help you understand what that means.

To watch the video, click the image above or use this direct link (http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1136907) which I encourage you to share. There is also a paper here on the technology of microarrays. And Wikipedia has an entry on DNA microarrays that I found quite helpful.

Capping the Net: AT&T T-Mobile deal spells bandwidth caps, captive users, and rising costs

2011-04-10T22:27:00.034-04:00

IMHO: If the AT&T purchase of T-Mobile goes through we will see a new era of rising prices for bandwidth, the expansion of bandwidth caps and captive users. I have been saying for some time that the future of the 'net is looking bleak, at least from the point of view of the average user.

The days of cheap and seemingly limitless bandwidth are coming to an end. Maybe not tomorrow, or even this year, but the writing is on the wall and it says you will have to pay a lot more for bandwidth, and you will pay by the gigabyte. No more all you can eat for X dollars per month. Try 5 gigabytes for $50 and $50 a gigabyte for overage. No rollovers, no exceptions, unless you opt for the platinum plan, a mortgage payment priced top tier of connectivity affordable only to the few.

The golden age of surfing without thinking about the bandwidth you are burning, the salad days of unlimited movie watching over the web, through your Xbox and onto your HD flat screen? It's about to end. Get ready to sit around the hearth and reminisce about the good old days of unlimited data plans and all the online gaming you could eat.

Melodramatic? Only time will tell. Set a reminder to check back here in 12 months (I use the calendar on my iPhone). But before you bet against these dire prognostications, checkout Stop the Cap, a great website that I've been watching for some years now. The have a wealth of material on many aspects of broadband pricing, service levels, and telecom lobbying:

Many companies in the broadband industry are engaged in a high-priced lobbying campaign to manufacture a “bandwidth crisis/exaflood” or “shortage,” suggesting that consumers are abusing their broadband connections at such a rate it threatens the integrity of the Internet and its distribution platform...[but]...most of the companies complaining refuse to open their records to independent verification “for competitive reasons.”

If you do visit Stop the Cap you will see where I got the inspiration for the graphics in this post. Anyone who wants to raise awareness of cap-creep and other net-farious telco activities is free to re-use or link to my images. However, use of these images by any telco without written permission is prohibited. (Okay, so it's highly unlikely anyone from AT&T or T-Mobile or Comcast or Time Warner or Verizon is going to read this, but I'm just saying, you've been warned, right.)

API Pop-Up Box Bug in Twitter Seems to be Fixed

2011-03-23T11:53:00.035-04:00

I hope I am not speaking too soon, but the Twitter bug that has been bugging me for the better part of a year seems to be fixed. Twitter is no longer asking me to log into the Twitter API (for the record I have never had anything to do with the Twitter API, apart from trying to get rid of that login box).

Since I had complained so much, I felt it was only fair to let people know of this incremental improvement in Twitter. Not that all is well at Twitter, according to this Fortune magazine cover story. But one good sign might be this quote from Jack Dorsey, cofounder and former CEO of Twitter, is now back on baord as Executive Chairman of product (development, improvement, completion, or whatever):

"We're just humans running these companies."

Some might say that quote should be on the wall of every C-level office in techno-startup-land.

Twitter's New Interface Still Has Issues (API Pop-Up Box Asks Me to Log In)

2011-01-02T17:12:00.004-05:00

So, if I was running a social media service like Twitter, one which faces stiff competition, I would place a priority on fixing bugs. After all, if there are other places where people can share what is going on in their lives without bugs, people will tend to share there instead. Which is why it makes no sense to me that Twitter has had a known bug in its new web interface for about a year now.

This bug randomly pops up a dialog box asking for User Name and Password. If that wasn't bad enough, the box seizes focus and suddenly appears over the top of another browser window, which is annoying to say the least. However, that's not quite as annoying as the statement on the Twitter site saying "We are still in the preliminary stage of identifying the causes of this problem."

Great! Six months or more of complaints and you're still in the preliminary stage of finding out what the problem is? What other company gets to treat its customers like this? As a CISSP the headline statement that "Your account is not being phished/compromised" is particularly worrying. I mean a. How do you know? b. What a great scam. Here's how a bad actor intent on stealing user names and passwords could proceed: Create a phishing box that looks like the one that Twitter claims is not a scam. People Google the problem and get assurance from Twitter that this is not a scam, and the scam cheerfully carries on.

For about 15 minutes some 15 days ago I thought the bug was fixed, but n-o-o-o it came back, and it is ugly. It makes the new interface impossible for me to use in Firefox. I'm not going to switch browsers just to use the new interface. It should work in Firefox, which has more users than Twitter. So I am still using the old version of Twitter, which is not a huge inconvenience, but now Twitter has started telling me "You’re using an older version of Twitter that won’t be around for much longer."

Great! Who would have thought this was a good business plan: Introduce a new version, discover and document bugs, fail to fix them, then make people use the new version. Just in case you think this is me being dumb or curmudgeonly, check out this page where Twitter cheerfully documents the bug as though it was of little concern, and more than 100 people describe their frustration with this ongoing problem.

I was going to supply my own comment but Twitter was over capacity last time I tried. IMHO this is not a sustainable business model, unless the point is to drive Twitter traffic to other interfaces or other social media services such as Facebook (which has never told me it is over capacity and has, despite an awkward interface, relatively few bugs).

2 Butt-Saving SaaS Keystrokes You Need to Know to Avoid Losing Your Online Work

2010-09-28T18:25:00.006-04:00

If you use a computer in your work you have probably noticed that more and more of your time at the computer is spent with a SaaS, as in Software as a Service. And I bet there have been times when that SaaS has bitten you in the @ss...in other words, it has lost the work you were doing. This blog post offers a simple technique that enables you to recover when that happens, whether at work or at home.

The classic example of a business SaaS is Salesforce.com, widely used for the important task of tracking the people with whom you do business. You don't install the Salesforce software on your computer you connect with it through a web browser. The same is true of Google Docs. This is software that lets you do word processing and create spreadsheets and presentations, but it "lives" on Google computers, not your computer.

In fact, blogs like this one are also SaaS. The software that lets me edit and present this blog post is on a Google computer and I operate that computer via a web browser. Even Facebook and Twitter can be considered examples of SaaS, particularly when it comes to trashing your work. What do I mean by that? Here's a scenario to which many can relate:

You spend time crafting a paragraph of words that are being typed into a text box in a web browser. You then click Save or Send or Submit or Update, whatever the button is called for that particular page. And nothing happens, or something happens but it's not good, the page reloads and your carefully crafted paragraph of words has disappeared. Sometimes there is an error displayed, like "Server Error" or "Authentication Failed" or the polite but infuriating: "Sorry, we cannot complete your request at this time." The point is, polite as the site might be, it has lost your work.

So how do you recover from this? I make it a habit to use two keystrokes right before I click Save. These keystrokes are: Ctrl-A and Ctrl-C in Windows; Apple-A and Apple-C on a Mac. These two keystrokes select All the contents of the text entry box and Copy them to the Clipboard, that slice of computer memory you use to copy things from one place to another. Then, if the SaaS that I am using somehow loses the contents that I just asked it to Save, I still have them, preserved in the Clipboard.

I have a second, more advanced strategy for serious work with a SaaS. If I am editing a particularly long piece of text, maybe a major blog post, I use Ctrl-A followed by Ctrl-C, as above, then I switch to an open document file that is local--for example Notepad or TextMate or even OpenOffice Writer--and press Ctrl-V. That pastes the contents of the Clipboard into a document that is independent of the web browser. If the SaaS crashes I still have my work. I could take that a step further and press Ctrl-S for Save after pasting into the document. That enables the work to survive a computer crash, should the SaaS behave really badly.

The whole process can be carried out very quickly, particularly if you are comfortable with the Tab commands for switching applications. So on a Windows machine where you have Firefox and OpenOffice Writer running it would go like this:

Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C while editing the SaaS text box in Firefox
Alt-Tab to switch to OpenOffice
Ctrl-V and Ctrl-S to paste the text and save it.
Alt-Tab to return to the SaaS in Firefox
Execute Save/Submit command in the SaaS

If you are using a Mac the sequence is the same but the keys are even easier:

Apple-A, Apple-C while editing the SaaS text box in Firefox
Apple-Tab to switch to OpenOffice
Apple-V and Apple-S to paste the text and save it.
Apple-Tab to return to the SaaS in Firefox
Execute Save/Submit command in the SaaS

Having lost more typing than I care to remember due to browser-based applications failing to save as instructed, these preventative keystrokes are second nature to me. When the work is a series of paragraphs I may save to the clipboard as I go. BTW, as an added bonus, saving to a local document file is a handy way to keep a record of your work (for example, I write a lot of comments on blog posts and some blogs just seem to lose them or fail to approve them, casting my well-chosen words into the ether, but I have a record of them in my local files).

The risks to your SaaS are not all equal. Some applications that involve extensive text entry perform periodic auto-saving (in the case of Google Docs I find the auto-save is actually too frequent). And a lot of work in programs like Salesforce consists of small pieces of data entered in a series of fields or indicated by radio buttons or checkboxes. These tend to be saved more reliably. It is in places like a "Comments" or "Notes" section that you can spend a lot of time getting your words right only to find you have to write them all over again (unless you used the preventative keystrokes described above).

AT&T Apple iPhone 4 Launch More Proof Big Companies Mess Up Big

2010-06-17T21:49:00.003-04:00

Tried to pre-order an Apple iPhone 4 lately? I just went to the AT&T web site which proudly proclaims "iPhone 4 This changes everything. Again." Apparently it does not change the tradition of Apple messing up product launches and AT&T failing to deliver on its promises. There's a big button that says "Pre-order Now" but when you click it, you find you can't (the message is "Pre-orders for iPhone temporarily suspended").

Facebook Tool Might Help With Privacy Settings and Awareness

2010-05-03T21:03:00.002-04:00

Using Facebook means sharing personal information with at least some people, but Facebook sometimes makes changes to the way sharing works. Knowing exactly what you share and with whom can be hard to figure out. And at least some of your information is visible to everyone, even people who don't use Facebook, thanks to something called the Graph API. Confused? Fortunately, someone created a web tool that shows you what the Graph API reveals. Here's a sample of my Facebook information, as revealed by this tool:

How revealing is this? In one sense it is no revelation at all. It's no secret that I like Stagecoach Coffee. I've blogged about their great French Toast more than once. But in this screen shot I cropped the full report which shows I like a lot more than just these three things. Frankly, I was not aware that people who are not "on" Facebook could see this information and I am probably not the only person sharing this false assumption.

There are some potentially serious implications. What if you "like" something that is not liked by your boss or perhaps a prospective employer? Maybe you like the idea of legalizing marijuana. Some people could read that the wrong way. "Like" is the new Facebook term for "Fan" and maybe, perhaps a few years ago, you "fanned" some crazy stuff. Do you even remember all the things you fanned? (I had totally forgotten some of my likes).

So, my hat is off to Ka-Ping Yee, the Google.org software engineer and UC Berkeley graduate who created this little application that could have some big implications. (In that sense, he's a good example of a "white hat hacker," a gifted technologist who has shown us some of the pitfalls of a particular technology.) For example, thanks to Graph API you can check out people on Facebook without being logged into Facebook. You can just plug in their Facebook ID and look around. You can even enter random names and ID numbers. Some information is protected by privacy settings, some is not. And the reports that Ka-Ping Yee's web page displays contain live links (e.g. the report above shows a live link to the Stagecoach Coffee page) so you can just click your way from one piece of data to the next.

All of which is a little worrying when you factor in something I have blogged elsewhere, namely Facebook's founder Marc Zuckergerg's alleged indifference towards privacy. The various privacy missteps that Facebook has taken since its inception, and the difficulty many users have trying to keep up with changes to the way Facebook handles privacy settings, tend to add credence to the claim that Mr. Zuckerberg does not care about privacy. Consider what happens when you want to change your privacy settings.

Facebook makes you go through a two-step process if you want the most private of settings. When you want something to be visible to Everyone or Friends of Friends all you need is to select from a pull down list. But making something visible only to yourself is not visible as an option. You have to go through an extra step and choose Customize to see that choice.

That suggests the interface designers are not keen for you to get restrictive with your privacy. Of course, it could be a simple design flaw, but Facebook users are likely to be sensitive to such things these days, particularly when they learn that none of the settings can hide your "likes" from the Graph API and the outside world.

(If I have this wrong, please leave me a comment and let me know. I changed the privacy setting for "Things I Like" to "Only me" but they are still visible to the Graph API, as seen here: http://zesty.ca/facebook/#/stcobb/likes.)

Mac Mini RAM Upgrade Tips

2010-04-18T18:49:00.003-04:00

I just upgraded the RAM on my Mac Mini and it has made a big difference to performance so I figured I would share some tips on this type of upgrade. (So many people share helpful information on the Web I've been feeling guilty that I have not done more sharing myself, so hopefully this will help make amends.)

Ironically enough, my first tip is to watch someone else's video of how to do a Mac Mini RAM and hard drive upgrade (it may make sense to do both upgrades at once--you have to take the thing apart in both cases, pun intended--but you don't have to do both, the video is helpful either way). This is the best video I saw during a fairly extensive review of what is out there. You can find it here on Vimeo.

I suggest you watch the video and, if you still feel like going forward with an upgrade, consider the tips I have written up here before you start (unfortunately, hardware can be more difficult to work with than it appears in such videos).

My second tip comes after you separate the outer case from the innards: Get a magnetic to use with your screwdriver. I use a magnetic hook. You attach the magnet to the metal shaft of the screwdriver so it will pull the screw out of the hole when I lift the screwdriver (helps to keep screws getting lost inside the case or on the floor). (These magnetic hooks are Neodymium and coated with soft plastic so they don't scratch. They have a holding power of about 9 pounds and I use them for hanging up key rings. You can order them here.)

Third tip is to mark the corner that requires a screw that is longer than the other three. I marked this on the optical drive cover with a thin Sharpie.

My fourth tip concerns removal of the 2-wire power connector as shown in the video. Do this very carefully, prying the black connector out of the socket. do NOT pull on the wires as they may be brittle (I ended up breaking one and fixing it was a pain). I think the key to getting this one right is using good lighting and possibly a magnifying glass.

Next up is the pulling the drive unit out of the innards, so to speak. You need to do this with care because there is a ribbon cable that wires the drive unit to the innards and it must not be strained or disconnected.

Complicating matters is an edge connector that must be pulled out, which means you do need some force to get the two parts apart. Then you will need to support the drive unit while you perform your RAM upgrade. The video glosses over this but the solution is very simple, just place the outer case under the drive unit.

Here you can see the drive unit on the case with the innards exposed ready to proceed. But first, I suggest you carefully place the whole thing on a tray of some kind and take it some place you can blow off the dust with an air can (or suck off the dust if you have a computer vacuum).

What looks like mold growing on the unit in the picture is dust. The fan unit is likely to be full of dust as well. Blow this out carefully, in a well-ventilated area. No point opening the case without performing this bit of preventive maintenance (Mac Minis are known for being super quiet but mine had started to make some noise--this cleanup returned it to quiet mode).

The video has good instructions on changing the RAM. My machine had two 512 megabyte memory cards and I simply replaced the top one with a 2 gigabyte card. This gives me 2.5 gigabytes total and seems to make the Mac Mini work a lot better (programs load faster than I'm not getting so many delays when running multiple programs at once).

Final tips concern re-assembly. Be careful that you thread the BlueTooth antenna cable the right way or it could get pinched. Also make sure that the wires crossing the ribbon cable do so neatly, within the fold of the cable. Finally, as recommended in the video, test things before you put the outer case back on. This has been a habit of mine from my earliest days making PCs out of cloned motherboards. The cover doesn't go on until everything checks out, otherwise you jinx things!

Well, that about does it. One final tip is to make sure you have access to the video while doing this. I downloaded it to my Windows laptop so I could watch it while the Mac was in pieces. Good luck with your upgrade!

Technology for Haiti's Recovery: OLPC reaches out to G1G1 supporters

2010-02-02T18:11:00.004-05:00

If you've been reading this blog for years (and some people have, seriously) then you may recall how excited I was when the One Laptop Per Child program starting shipping its cool XO machines to developing countries. Back at the end of 2007 my wife and I participated in the Give One, Get One program which resulted in tens of thousands of XO laptops being donated to places like Rwanda, Ethiopia, Mongolia, and Cambodia.

Referred to as G1G1, program participants paid for the purchase of two XO machines, one of which was donated, the other sent to us for exploration, edification, etc.

Well, after the earthquake in Haiti, OLPC put out a call to all G1G1 supporters to ask for any unused XO machines to be donated to Haiti. Below is the email sent by Nicholas Negroponte, the OLPC movement's founder and driving force. Obviously Mr. Negroponte knows geeks pretty well. We were excited to get our laptop. We checked out the software and began to experiment with it, but then real life got in the way and "Do stuff with the XO" moved down the things-to-do list. I suspect many G1G1 supporters can relate to that. So, we are sending our XO to Haiti, per the instructions in the email, happy to think that in some small way this will help with the rebuilding of the country and the shaping of its future.

I am blogging this and including the email because I know something about geeks as well. Some of use go through email addresses like...hmmm...words fail me here...but my point is, you might not be getting email from the address you supplied when you participated in G1G1 program. And you might have missed this:

Dear G1G1er,

At the end of 2007 you participated in the Give One Get One program of One Laptop per Child (OLPC). Thanks to you and others like you, 75,000 laptops went to Rwanda, Ethiopia, Mongolia, Cambodia, Oceania, the West Bank, and Haiti.

An additional 75,000 laptops came into the USA as part of the "get" side of the equation. In some cases those laptops have since been put into closets for one reason or another.

We are gathering additional used XO laptops to send to Haiti. If you or the child to whom you gave the laptop is no longer using it, we appeal again to your generosity and ask you to send it to the address below (even if it is broken).

OLPC FOR HAITI c/o Exel

615 Westport Parkway #500

Grapevine, TX 76051

75% of the schools in Port-au-Prince have been destroyed in the recent earthquake, but by good fortune, none of our Haitian team was hurt. They have spare parts and OLPC technical staff and teachers, and stand prepared to deploy these XOs.

Because of the XO's unique features (sunlight readability, solar powered, water resistant, drop proof), it is also an ideal tool for relief work. If your XO is in use, please ignore this email. We only want your broken or unused XOs.

Sincerely,

Nicholas Negroponte

Neat Facebook Fan Hack

2010-01-24T10:38:00.002-05:00

Not really a hack, more a clever strategy, the point of which is to hide certain information on Facebook until a person "fans" your page.

From the John Haydon blog. Will be trying this out soon on Facebook pages I run for Dare Not Walk Alone and Fighting Hemochromatosis.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-13T00:09:00.002-05:00

Wishing everyone a great 2010. May none of your technology fail after the warranty period ends.

The Cost of Windows 7

2009-12-13T17:03:00.001-05:00

I just wanted to highlight a good blog post I read today in Information Week about the way Microsoft prices Windows upgrades.

Under the clever headline "Microsoft's Non-Family Values" blogger Dave Methvin lays out the logic behind charging $120 to upgrade a single Windows XP or Windows Vista machine to Windows 7. After all, Apple only charges about $25 for an OS upgrade (and offers attractive "family" pricing for multiple licenses). Not surprisingly the answer to "Why does Microsoft charge so much?" boils down to "Because it wants to and it can." The reason Microsoft wants to is the alliance--some would say "unholy alliance"--between hardware makers and Microsoft.

Basically, if it costs $120 and a bunch of hassles to get your old notebook running Windows 7, and a new notebook can be had for $400 with Windows 7 installed, there's a good chance you will opt to buy the new notebook, which helps the hardware makers--keeps the production lines moving and the cash flow coming--and helps Microsoft justify the huge fees it charges the many different computer makers who need the rights to install Windows 7. Of course, that $400 notebook is usually an under-powered teaser model and the PC makers hope you will go for the $1,000 models once they get you in a buying mood.

A good example is my own Sony VAIO that I bought new with XP installed about 4 years ago. No way is Sony going to support Windows 7 on that machine. Sony wants me to buy a new machine. Period. (And if the refusal to support Windows 7 is not incentive enough, Sony apparently has a backup plan that consists of making the fan get so loud and annoying I am forced to retire the thing or lose my sanity.)

Unfortunately, unholy alliances being what they are, Microsoft can't offer a $20 per PC upgrade deal even if it wanted to. The hardware makers would scream foul. They would lose out on sales of new hardware AND face demands for drivers and support and all the related hassles that hardware makers hate to deal with (mainly because they are expensive).

How ironic that I have a reliable 4 year-old computer that delivers entirely adequate performance under Windows XP or 7 yet is a dissappointment to the company that made it. Reminds me of the car industry.

Beware the Impression of Speed in Windows 7

2009-12-03T20:21:00.004-05:00

I am still exploring Microsoft Windows 7 on the Sony VAIO notebook I bought a few years ago and, like many people checking out Windows 7, I am still getting an impression of improved speed. But this could be dangerous. I suspect the need for speed is driving a lot of Vista and XP users towards Windows 7 but the question you need to ask is this: How long will it last?

Any experienced Windows user knows that fresh installs of past versions of Windows were pretty nippy compared to two-year old install. Sadly, a machine that has been running the same Windows 2000, XP or Vista install for two years is likely to be slowed down by a hugely bloated registry and all kinds of DLLs and taskbar apps and startup items and such, even if you've been using a registry cleaner and optimizer.

A new Windows machine is bound to seem faster, as is a new install. This is particularly tricky for XP users because you can't upgrade XP to 7, you have to do a fresh install of Windows 7. And when you do that you wipe the slate clean, so to speak, and things sure do seem faster. The big question is: How long will that last?

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has answers to that. Is there anything in the design of Windows 7 that would lead us to hope it remains fast? Just click on COMMENTS below to share your thoughts.

Web Site Building Bits and Tips

2009-11-30T16:05:00.002-05:00

Just a quick post to share some links you might find helpful if you are building a new web site. I've been helping several folks with their web site aspirations lately and came across these, in no particularly order:

First, how about a menu? It is pretty easy to create a nice top level menu using css and an unordered css. The tricky bit is a drop-down menu. That link will take you to a very simple but effective design which requires very little code.

If you are familiar with jquery you can use it to create a menu like the one on the left. The html/css/js code for doing this is available from this page, linked here. But what if you want to sketch out a complete web page design with menus and page elements?

For this there is a tool called Mocking Bird that you might want to check out (works best on a very broadband connection). Another new tool that might be worth looking into is: www.wix.com. It's a web site that let's you build a web site that uses Flash (like Mocking Bird, Wix is an example of an application delivered as a service, in other words, Software as a Service or SaaS, just like Salesforce or the marketing product that I've been working on: Monetate).

With these two web design apps you can create pages or edit templates using a web-based interface. As with many SaaS offerings the feature set is continually evolving so I suggest you check them out rather than rely on my giving you a snapshot of their capabilities.

When you are designing web pages, the grid approach can be very helpful. Here is an article on grid-based design that I found useful, full of links to related content (I am finding Smashing Magazine a good resource in general, for everything from WordPress themes and buttons, to coding tips).

The ability to draw a design on a grid and then have an application generate the required CSS is a huge boon to web site developers. Here's an article that has links to 15 ways of accomplishing this. (What a difference these would have made when I first started messing with CSS layouts.) Another solution, not on the list of 15, is 960 Grid System. As the name implies, 960GS simplifies designing around a width of 960 pixels, which is a common choice these days for page width.

Finally, for this post, I want to mention XAMPP, software that let's you test a lot of stuff on your Windows laptop or desktop before putting it on a Linux/UNIX web site. With XAMPP you get the ability to run Apache, MySQL, PHP and Perl (the AMPP). Of course, this then gives you the ability to install WordPress on your Windows box which is very handy when developing sites in WordPress. Fro Mac OS X users there is similar functionality in MAMP.

Happy page building!

Handy Tech Tip: Vista and Windows 7 Device Driver Uninstall

2009-11-15T12:31:00.007-05:00

As you may have discovered by now, your PC may be able to run Windows 7 but the maker of your PC does not plan to support you in this endeavor (Sony is a "good" example of a PC maker that is telling loyal owners of "older" Viao machines you are out-of-luck and on-your-own when it comes to Windows 7 drivers).

Of course, with the aid of Google and the many good folks who like to share on the 'net, workarounds abound. However, one problem you can end up with, given the hit-or-miss nature of manufacturer support for Windows 7, is a bunch of installed drivers that you don't need. I found this page helpful in dealing with this:

Uninstall Drivers from Vista & Windows 7

Do bear in mind the author's advice to make copies of drivers before you remove them. The thing that surprises me about drivers for Windows 7 is that XP drivers often work okay. I will try to blog more about that when I get my Vaio VGN-S460P fully configured. (Hint: This is one of the machines that Sony has no intention of supporting under Windows 7, but you can do a clean install of Windows 7 and so far it is working well--thanks to a set of original XP drivers.)

FireFox + ScribeFire = A great way to blog

2009-11-15T11:21:00.002-05:00

I just added ScribeFire to Firefox on my "new" Windows 7 laptop and I have to say, this is the way to blog, particularly if you are blogging web pages, i.e. posting links to pages of interest with some added commentary. This is a good page to start at ScribeFire:

Getting Started With ScribeFire - Scribefire: Fire up your blogging

I have barely scratched the surface of this app but already it is way ahead of things like the Blogger "Blog this" add-in. Hopefully this functionality will enable me to blog more of my experiences getting Windows 7 running on my "old" Sony Vaio, which is now my "new" laptop.

Coffee, French Toast, and Stagecoach WiFi

2009-09-01T13:12:00.004-04:00

This is not really a technology post. It is more like a techie-related signpost, pointing first to great coffee and French toast at Stagecoach Coffee in Cooperstown (which has free WiFi). Check out the iPhone snapshot for mouth-watering details.

The second pointer is to a YouTube video that is somewhat techie, and which I uploaded from the very same Stagecoach. The video is about problems with DNS and HughesNet Satellite Internet service.

My Day Job Explained: Marketing Online Marketing Technology

2009-09-01T11:36:00.002-04:00

From time to time people ask me what I'm doing these days in terms of day job. Well first of all, I'm not really a "day job" kind of guy. If I work on something, I usually work on it 7x24, or at least 24 times X, where X is most days of the week.

That said, there's usually one job that has most of my time and attention during the day. Right now that job is marketing a new technology. One term for this technology is "post-click marketing." So in effect I am marketing a marketing product. And that means I am, in a very real sense, heavy into marketing. As to what this marketing technology does, I wrote a short article that hopefully explains it:

How Post-Click Marketing Can Make You Money Shared via AddThis

Actual Speeds on HughesNet Satellite Internet Service

2009-08-27T21:07:00.013-04:00

This is just a short post for anyone who is curious about how well HughesNet Satellite Internet service works. I pay $80 a month for HughesNet ProPlus service which is described on the company's web site as follows:

"With the ProPlus plan, connect to the Internet with maximum download speeds of up to 1.6 Mbps, with typical speeds about 800 Kbps to 1000 Kbps during peak times. Upload speeds, which are capable of reaching 250 Kbps, are typically 130 Kbps to 150 Kbps during peak hours."

As you can see from the chart on the left, I do not get anything like that. The highest burst of speed was 679 Kbps up and 68 Kbps down. But that speed is for a fraction of a second, transferring only part of a file. The best average speed over the course of a single file transfer in these tests is 275/67 which is a far cry from the low end of the 800/130 cited by HughesNet. BTW, that chart is a screen shot from a widely tested and trusted speed test program on my iPhone. I have checked it against other tests in other locations. The chart is all the results from my random tests in the last month or so. I have not edited out anything. As you can see, I have never clocked the promised low end of 800/130 let alone the fabled 1600/250. As for the average, what I typically get from this 1600/250 service is 174/52.

These results match those my wife has recorded using Hughes own speed test application. In other words, according to Hughes themselves, we get way worse service than we pay for. One of these days I will make yet another attempt to get Hughes to address this problem. My wife has made numerous calls to them in the past but things have not improved. They have a very cavalier attitude to problem tickets and consistently close them out without actually resolving the problem.

Like many other HughesNet users we hesitate to get too angry with them because they are currently our only option for "high speed" Internet (given that, in our case, fate has us living on a hill in upstate New York, one of the millions of places in this country that phone and cable companies refuse to service adequately). So it's not like we can switch to anything else.

There are many other problems with satellite Internet service, like lack of support for VPN and VoIP, latency times that are worse than dialup, and a daily bandwidth cap of 435 megabytes. We have learned to live with these, but we have not received anything in return. We are not even getting one sixth of the speed we pay for. Hopefully, this information will be helpful for anyone who is thinking about chosing to live beyond the reach of cable or DSL. My advice? Don't do it, not unless your goal is to disconnect from the Internet. Believe me when I say, if the housing market were not so depressed, we'd be looking to move to a place that has cable or DSL and ditch this over-priced dish.

iPhone 3.0 and Vanilla Bean Crème Brûlée French Toast

2009-07-31T01:25:00.000-04:00

I need to post this quick before July is gone and I fail the one post-per-month minimum for this blog. So here goes:

I like the iPhone. With my 3G now upgraded to 3.0 and the ability to cut, paste, and search globally, the device can now serve as a portable computer as well as a phone, camera, music player, GPS, and recording device. I can write decent notes, take decent photos, surf most web sites acceptably, and take care of email. While I don't seem to have much time to play with apps, there are several on my iPhone just in case I get stuck somewhere without a WiFi, 3G, or Edge connection. I will write more about apps in a later post--although you can see some of my choices in the screen shot (and the ease of doing screen shots is no small bonus feature).

While AT&T 3G coverage is still weak in my opinion, I can get an Edge signal most places. That means I can stay in touch with folks in my head office with Yammer while traveling. I can handle both work and personal Twitter accounts while on the move (observing all applicable bylaws officer, honest). At the end of the day I can plug in my Sennheiser PXC 250 Active Noise Canceling Headphones and be lulled to sleep by any number of albums or my favorite Pandora station (currently Tangerine Dream Radio). I can even put the iPhone on the nightstand and play soothing sounds over the built-in speakers.

Speaking of sounds, I have now used the Voice Memo feature to record several interviews. The quality is surprisingly good if you are in a controlled environment, like an office with a door on it. The recordings are easy on the ears when transcribing and acceptable for podcasting. I don't like the fact that voice recordings are stored as m4a files (although these are easily converted to MP3 by iTunes). And it would be nice if I could copy voice files off the phone some other way than syncing within iTunes (mailing memos longer than one minute in length doesn't seem to work and you can't yet see your iPhone as a drag-n-drop NAS device or BlueTooth drive).

The iPhone has taken many mobile device features beyond the gimmick phase to downright useful. I actually turned to the iPhone GPS to get out of a sticky situation in Boston where I was on a deadline and needed to walk the city's crooked streets from my hotel to one of several Staples. Worked like a charm.

Of course, some people are going to read this and say: "See, we told you the iPhone was awesome." To which I reply, "And you were wrong." It is awesome now, it wasn't awesome a year ago. Back then it had a lot of potential, but until 3.0 it was missing vital functions. Even now, I would limit the plaudit of "awesome" to the 3GS, which adds video recording, digital compass, and voice control to the 3G, together with a performance boost.

So, my 3G is cool and I'm really enjoying it. I haven't had time to dig into the complex math of how much money it would take for me to become a 3GS user. And I haven't had time to berate AT&T for the failure to support tethering (I have a hack for that which takes the edge off, so to speak). Now I'm off to enjoy the world's best decaff latté at StageCoach Coffee. I may have to order a piece of the amazing Vanilla Bean Crème Brûlée French Toast, just so I can use my iPhone to post a 2 megapixel, non-auto-focus picture of it on Twitpics.

iPhone Camera Impresses

2009-06-20T20:42:00.003-04:00

As I wait to upgrade my iPhone to the newly released 3.0 version of the operating system (over 200 megabytes worth of download) I continue to be impressed with the camera on my iPhone 3G. The other morning I snapped this shot of Layla on our daily walk. Sometimes the effect of using a lower resolution digital camera, such as you get on a mobile phone, is almost 'painterly' in the way resolves complex images into pixels. If you click this image you will get an expanded view, which [IMHO] is still pleasing despite the lack of resolution.

The Inside Word on the Next Apple iPhone?

2009-05-17T17:42:00.011-04:00

According to an Apple Insider story that came out on Friday--and was apparently overlooked by the mainstream press--Apple executives said they believe "the iPhone remains in its infancy" and revealed to one analyst "a series of strategic measures they may employ in the near term to help grow the handset's share of the booming smartphone market."

Apparently, "the comments came during a meeting between senior company officials and analysts for Oppenheimer... analyst Yair Reiner said Apple sidestepped his questions on new products but remained upbeat about the potential for "considerable" growth." Reiner also wrote that Apple thinks "the iPhone is still in its early days and could gain share by: providing more functionality; lowering prices; growing geographically; or segmenting the market with different models."

So what would those models look like? Well, you could be looking at one of them right here. The image, marked as EMBARGOED appears to show an iPhone with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard.

Apple was stung earlier this year by the press attention given to Palm's announcement of the "Pre" model. It uses a large, gestured-enabled display which looks a lot like the iPhone. But the Pre also has a slide out QWERTY keyboard. Many smartphone users have expressed a preference for the tactile feedback of a "real" keyboard as opposed to the onscreen keyboard on current iPhones (which some users find unreliable and which undeniably takes up valuable screen real estate when in use).

So, does it make sense for Apple to strike back with a slide out tactile keyboard of its own? Maybe. The soon-to-be-released 3.0 iPhone software upgrade will add the long missing/awaited ability to select text and copy from one app to another (a stock feature of all Palm smartphones going back many years). Blackberry users seem loathe to give up their QWERTYs. This is one analyst that wouldn't be surprised to see Apple cave in to QWERTY pressure as well.

[Note: This blog post should not be used as a basis for investment decisions and readers are reminded that it is a blog post. We first saw this particular image at the very beginning of April.]

Blogging From the iPhone

2009-05-15T21:47:00.002-04:00

Checking out a new blogging channel. Quite a nice little app. Called BlogPress. Next up will be a test of photos. Wait there's a camera icon. Cool.

Post From My iPhone

Google reshoots Japan views after privacy complaints

2009-05-14T12:45:00.000-04:00

So what's with these island nations and Google Street View? First English villagers attack Google camera car. Now the Japanese are upset. See my previous posts on this here, and also here.

Google reshoots Japan views after privacy complaints - News - CNBC.com: "TOKYO, May 13 (Reuters) - Internet search engine Google said it would reshoot all Japanese pictures for its online photo map service, Street View, using lower camera angles after complaints about invasion of privacy."

BTW and FYI, did you know that England, if considered as a separate country, has a higher population density than Japan. Does that make a difference to people's perceptions of privacy? You bet!

Google Street View Privacy Survey: Win an Earth Day Prize!

2009-04-22T11:22:00.000-04:00

I recently wrote about privacy attitudes to Google Street View and I thought it would be interesting to carry out a quick survey. Since viewing places on Google Street View is arguably more earth-friendly than going to see them in person, I decided to offers some cool Earth Day prizes!

Five people who complete the survey, between now and April 25, will be randomly selected to receive cool re-usable shopping bags, the kind that save using paper and plastic. These bags are burnt orange in color but very green. And the really cool thing is they fit in your pocket, no kidding! So please take a moment to fill out the form and include your email address if you want to be in the prize drawing. Good luck!

&amp;lt;a href="http://scobb.wufoo.com/forms/z7x4m1/" title="Privacy and Google Street View"&amp;gt;Fill out my Wufoo form!&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

The Wisdom of Villagers? Google Street View stirs protest in the UK

2009-04-04T23:28:00.012-04:00

When villagers in Broughton, England, stepped into the road and linked arms last week to block the progress of a Google Street View camera car, were they also blocking progress? Or were they demonstrating that the wisdom of ordinary folk can sometimes exceed that of the brightest, or richest, techno-geek?

Why wouldn't the villagers of England welcome a technology that is proving very popular in its land of origin, America, the ability to enjoy a 360 degree view of city streets, from street level? Well, when a journalist asks for comment I always say: There are three main points to consider.

1. Geography. Streets and sidewalks in English cities are typically narrower than they are in America. That puts the Google camera car very close to your front door. Take a look at this first image, from a street in Leeds.

Drive down the left hand side of this street with a camera mounted on the roof of your car and you are just a few yards from the front doors you are snapping.

(I used to live a few streets over from this one when I was a student at the University of Leeds, and we had no front garden at all, just a door that opened onto the sidewalk or "pavement".)

The upshot of this domestic geography is shots like the second one, of a young lady pushing her baby through the front doorway of a house in Coventry. As you can see this Google Street View also contains a clear view of the neighbor's living room. (I don't think that's a flat screen TV that I see over the fireplace--but maybe a few doors down you might get lucky.) I think a lot of people on both sides of the Atlantic would consider that image intrusive.

2. Crime. The"mob" in Broughton cited a recent spate of burglaries as one of their reasons for objecting to Google Street View and Americans should note that a home in England is twice as likely to be broken into as an American home. Furthermore, 53% of English burglaries occur when someone is at home (versus 13% in America).

As someone who has experienced being woken up in the middle of the night and seeing a burglar in an English home, I can tell you it gets the pulse racing and leaves a lasting impression. While English criminals are less likely to carry guns than their American counter-parts, the aggressive use of knives is widespread in the UK and rates of violent crime [other than murder] are higher in the UK than in the US. (I don't like to just assert a number like that wihtout a primary source, but here is a secondary source--aspiring criminologists take note, there is fame to be gained by publishing a thorough comparison of US/UK crime stats.)

In the UK burglary "case" with which I am personally familiar, the burglar had acquired knowledge of how to defeat a particular type of lock and was going from house-to-house in the middle of the night looking for, and entering, those that were fitted with such locks. How much safer and efficient, to do your research online, from the comfort of your sofa, using Street View?

3. Rights. In the comments of some Broughton residents I got a whiff of unease that has been brewing for some time, a sense that we, the people, are tired of corporations profiting from our existence. A bunch of companies, from credit reporting agencies to data aggregators, make their money off the fact that we exist. They sell information about me. And now one of the richest companies in the world is enhancing its profits with a snapshot of my house while big companies, Sears for example, charge you for using photographs of their "house." I sense the common man, and woman, is getting a little tired of this state of affairs. It doesn't feel quite right, even though it is hard to say exactly what is wrong with it.

So there you have the three points. And, as I would say to the interviewer, let me conclude by observing: The error often lies not in the act but in the reaction. Google's reaction was to say, in effect, "What's the big deal? It's easy for people to remove images." Oh yes, like the lady with the baby is going to be checking the status of her online identity every few weeks to see who's snapping her. I am reminded of the response companies used to give in the early days of spam, before spam became both imprudent and illegal: "What's the fuss? There's an easy way for consumers to get off the mailing list." The wisdom of folk suggests that Google has some serious work ahead if it is to avoid the emergence of a "Do not photo" list. Otherwise, Broughton may become a rallying cry for a whole lot more trouble to come.

I leave you with a question. What the heck is that plant growing in the living room of number 185?

Fun With Smells? Or smells Funny?

2009-04-01T13:04:00.004-04:00

On the lighter side, I've been having a lot of fun telling people about Smellr, the very latest in Web 2.0 social networks. I particularly like the tag line: "It's like Flickr, but for your nose." This is a project we put together at Monetate just in time for this special day. I think you'll agree the graphics are stunning (Luke) and the ad copy is just about right (me).

You will also find that some of the page content reflects your location when you visit this page, thanks to some Monetate special sauce. And although the site has been getting thousands of hits per hour, it is performing very well (Tom and Jeff).

Take a deep breath and enjoy!

Ready for RuMBA? Broadband Bill of Rights

2009-03-28T18:01:00.002-04:00

RuMBA Launches American Broadband Bill of Rights - Yahoo! Finance: "The Rural Mobile Broadband Alliance (RuMBA USA) was launched to assist rural community residents, carriers and equipment makers in raising awareness of the benefits of rural mobile broadband, and to encourage the most responsible use of stimulus package funds, thus maximizing the positive impact of broadband on the lives of ordinary Americans. RuMBA USA will disseminate statistics on the impact on employment, social, economic, educational, health care and business opportunities arising from proposed stimulus package spending on rural mobile broadband. Visit www.rumbausa.com for more information and to join the Alliance."

America's Broadband Access Gap: A rural and sub/urban divide

2009-03-28T18:00:00.001-04:00

A recent US Department of Agriculture study confirms the disparity in Broadband access between rural America and urban and suburban areas, with rural communities less likely to have access to high speed Internet.

Read the report (.pdf format) here.

April deadlines loom for Windows XP support

2009-03-27T10:44:00.000-04:00

April deadlines loom for Windows XP, Office 2003 product support:

"Microsoft is ending mainstream (free) support for Windows XP Home and Professional, as well as for its Office 2003 suite, on April 14, 2009. It also is “retiring” Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1), meaning it will no longer provide support for that four-year-old release.

Microsoft is offering paid, extended support for XP Professional users (who also have Software Assurance licensing contracts) until April 8, 2014. It also will provide paid, extended support for Office 2003 through August 4, 2012."

Broadband Stimulus Details (So Far)

2009-03-25T22:36:00.000-04:00

Risk factor could affect broadband stimulus payouts - CNET News:

"The departments of Commerce and Agriculture have a combined $7.2 billion from the stimulus package to dole out for broadband deployment and expect to receive more than 10,000 applications for funding."

And here's a link to the actual legislation. It's 407 pages, but see Title VI specifically.

Lobbyists, public interest groups square off over broadband stimulus rules

2009-03-24T22:32:00.000-04:00

Lobbyists, public interest groups square off over broadband stimulus rules - FierceTelecom:

"Policy wonks and telecom lobbyists are squaring off in a battle royal over which strings will be attached to broadband stimulus money. The fights aren't seen as a one-time battle, as the precedents set for USDA and NTIA funds are expected to be embraced for larger broadband spending of tens to hundreds of billions of dollars by Congress in the future."

The Broadband Stimulus Papers

2009-03-23T22:31:00.000-04:00

The federal economic stimulus bill includes $7.2 billion in grants, loans and loan guarantees to extend broadband Internet to underserved rural areas. There is a good article on the rural aspect here:

Rural areas hope stimulus package includes funds for broadband - JSOnline

Providing true broadband (i.e. fiber optic, cable, DSL, or WiMax but NOT satellite) to rural America would be the single greenest, most productive thing the government could do with the stimulus money. The increased potential for telecommuting alone could save huge amounts of fossil fuel consumption. Not to mention the community benefits of social network, local news coverage, online forums, etc. And the education benefits. Many children in rural America can't use the Internet at home like kids in urban and suburban aras, thus putting them at a big disadvantage.

Why the FCC is Wrong About Broadband

2009-03-22T22:26:00.000-04:00

According to this article, the Federal Communications Commission:

1. Assumes that if one house in a ZIP code has broadband access from a certain provider, then everyone in that area has the same access.

2. Defines high-speed Internet as anything that's slightly faster than a basic dial-up connection, including satellite service.

Well, as to item 2, the FCC is obviously has not read my previous post which explains why this is wrong, in so many ways.

I will soon explain why the FCC is wrong-headed on item 1 as well (although it should be obvious to anyone who has spent an hour or "out in the country").

Why Satellite Internet Is Not Really Broadband

2009-02-08T16:46:00.004-05:00

I recently posted a review of HughesNet satellite Internet service over at DSLReports. You may need to sign up to read it--which is totally worth the effort, DSLReports is a great source of info and news for bandwidth hungry net surfers--but I am also posting it here for ease of access:

Pros "Downloading is quite fast (but capped)"
Cons "Poor latency, 13Gb monthly cap, costly, flaky DNS, not true broadband"

Despite the fact that there is Verizon fiber optic at the end of my drive and Road Runner cable about 3 miles away, I cannot persuade anyone to run a broadband line to our home/office near Cooperstown in upstate New York (unless I pay $1,000 per month for a T1).

So, we pay HughesNet $80 per month even though it does not fit my definition of broadband (e.g. does not support VoIP, VPN or watching Netflix on demand movies).

Although traffic is fast enough when it gets going (from 1 to 1.5Mbs down) the latency is terrible (around 500ms, way slower than dialup) and if we exceed 435 megabytes downloaded in a day we are stuffed for 24 hours (Hughes actually slows your connection down to dialup speed--a death sentence if your boss wants you to take a quick look at his big deck of Powerpoint slides).

I should point out that the latency is not the "fault" of HughesNet but rather an unsolvable limitation when sending signals into space and back. This creates a huge overhead for things like logging into your bank account (what takes 20 seconds on true broadband takes 70 seconds on satellite). Doing online bill payment becomes a very tedious chore.

Hughes warns you not to try VoIP or VPN because of the latency, but does not make this clear in their TV ads. They also fail to give sufficient warning about the practical effect of bandwidth limits. For example, recent automatic operating system upgrades from Apple and Microsoft have both blown out our daily limit. Needless to say you have to turn off automatic OS upgrades, which potentially puts your system at risk.

HughesNet does offer a form of unlimited download, limited to between 3AM and 6AM. But we have found the speed and connection to be flaky when using this "feature." For example, you set up your download manager to get that big 600Mb file from your boss at 3AM but the connection flakes out and when you get up at 8AM you find most of the file arrived between 6 and 7 thus blowing out your allowance for the day.

There is also a problem with DNS flakiness (as reported by others in this forum). Random sites report DNS lookup errors but they are online. This was particularly weird when I found I could not get to my own web site over the HughesNet DNS servers for well over a week. If I used alternative DNS over Hughes, like running Anonymizer, I was able to see my site, as were friends on other ISP connections. I have a video of that issue here.

As a geek I am still amazed that I have a satellite uplink hanging off my porch that actually sends and receives, but that does not make up for the painful price/performance ratio and vicious bandwidth caps.

After a year on HughesNet I am devoting every spare moment to exploring my options (like getting that T1 and blasting WiMax out to all my neighbors--who have the same problems I do with satellite).

Bottom Line: "Should not be sold as broadband (no VPN, VoIP, OS upgrades, or movies)"

Cost of XP "Down" Grade? $150 at Dell

2008-12-08T07:58:00.000-05:00

"How much extra will people people pay to avoid Vista? Dell has pushed the price of avoiding Vista up to $150." Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com

And worth it! A new machine with XP installed is hard to find and I am hearing horror-stories from folks trying DIY retro-fitting of XP on machines that come with Vista.

An alternative? You can pick up an off-lease IBM Thinkpad running XP for about $350. I just ordered one for a family member. Will report back on the results.

Microsoft extends XP downgrade rights date by six months

2008-10-10T09:53:00.000-04:00

Good news for those of us who intend to keep using Windows XP until a viable alternative emerges: Microsoft extends XP downgrade rights date by six months.

But a warning to fellow XPers: Beware XP Service Pack 3. I am now pretty much much convinced that the purpose of SP3 was not to extend the life of XP (why would Redmond want to do that?). The effect, if not the goal, was to mess up a perfectly fine XP install and thereby nudge the user towards Vista.

That conclusion is based on my own experience doing an SP3 install on my test machine, and the oodles of posts I found from people who, like me, ran into problems, and evenetually uninstalled SP3 (after which my machine worked fine). I will not be putting SP3 on my 'main' machines.

Cell Ranger to the Rescue: A product that actually works

2008-08-06T18:21:00.003-04:00

It is perhaps a measure of contemporary consumer cynicism that many of us regard strong product claims with suspicion. Consider the Cell Ranger that I recently purchased in hopes of regaining cell phone service up at the cottage (our provider is AT&T and my wife's Blackberry normally has 2 bars indoors--my Treo often has 2 bars as well, but lately has been failing to reconnect to the network after I return from trips down to the post office, which lies in a dead zone).

The Cell Ranger web page proclaims: "Boost your bars!" Then it asks: What Frustrates YOU About Your Cellular Service?

Dropped Calls?
Poor Call Clarity?
Late VoiceMail and Text Message Notifications?
Slow Data and Music Downloads?

Amazingly, Cell Ranger claims to "Solve ALL These Problems!" And the unbelievable part comes when you check the price: $149.99. Now that might sound like a lot of money for two bits of plastic and a wire to connect them, but there is more to the product than that. Consider the price of other products that claim to boost signal at your house and you will be hard pressed to find anything under $250, and those products tend to have a fairly industrial look to them, suggesting that implementation might require hand tools.

So I took a chance and ordered one, the USB-powered Port version. When it arrived I stuck the small magnetic antenna on the charcoal grill that sits on the porch and plugged the other end into the nearest wall socket (I happened to have a USB-to-mains connector handy). Then I conducted my first test. The Blackberry went from 2 bars to 5 when I held it near the plug. The Treo connected to the network, which it had refused to do for weeks, and then it hit 5 bars. It retained connection in all rooms of the house. In other words, Cell Ranger works!

In the next few days I will test it on a trip to the post office. If I get signal there, I will be very impressed. The setup works best if you can use your phone near the plug end while keeping the plug far away from the antenna, which ideally sits on a metal surface or object outside the house/vehicle.

The boost effect is clearly quite localized. It is stronger when you are 30 inches from the device than when you are 30 feet away. I expected this but I think the Cell Ranger web site could make it a little clearer that the device will not light up your entire house (that said, it's boosting signal nicely throughout the cottage's modestly-sized living area ).

Is it worth the price? For me the answer is yes, especially if it boosts signal in the car. I really don't want to go through the hassle of changing carriers and handsets (that is a whole other world of consumer dissatisfaction). And although I've heard that Verizon works on our hill, there is no way of telling unless they loan me a Treo for several days to test it. (Note: This thing does not currently support Sprint/Nextel networks.)

You Know You're a Geek When:

2008-08-05T22:30:00.002-04:00

You use the words "really cute" to describe a black box containing chips. Like this eee from Asus. At only $300 and just 8.5x7x1 inches, this is thing is decidedly cool. Check it out on Wired.

You Know You're (Still) a Trainspotter When...

2008-08-01T11:06:00.004-04:00

You know you're still a trainspotter if you get very excited when your partner says "Did you know there's a new steam train in Britain?" Being an adult now, at least chronologically speaking, you resist the urge to point out that it is a new steam locomotive (a steam train is one or more pieces of rolling stock pulled, or possibly pushed, by a steam locomotive).

I've blogged about the new Tornado elsewhere, a brand new 4-6-2 Peppercorn A1 Pacific steam locomotive that will stir the soul of any true trainspotter. But what is a trainspotter? A trainspotter is someone seeks to see or 'spot' railway equipment, primarily locomotives (steam, diesel, electric, hybrids).
Sightings of equipment are typically catalogued, often with the goal of "classing", i.e. spotting all items within a particular category. For example, a trainspotter might say "I've classed the Duchies" meaning: I have seen all locomotives in the LMS Princess Coronation Class, known as Duchies because all of them were named after Duchesses (like the Duchess of Sutherland, seen on the left in Dave Hadley's fine 2001 photo of this beautifully preserved 4-6-2).

Although "trainspotter" eventually joined other terms of derision such as "anorak" in the wearisome and over-stuffed British lexicon of denigration, I am happy to embrace it today. As I suggested back in the nineties, in my lecture to computer hackers at DefCon IV in Las Vegas, trainspotters were steam age geeks, proto-hackers, hackers of the industrial age. We traveled the land in pursuit of the engines of progress, sightings of which we obsessively catalogued in our databases. We immersed ourselves in the minutiae of the rail networks. We hacked the system, we social engineered, we trespassed, all in the name of knowledge: our desire to know all there was to know about our chosen technology.

(Note: To any readers who have seen the film Trainspotting--a good-but-not-for-squeamish movie, featuring a career-making performance by young Ewan McGregor, himself a biker-geek--forget that movie when thinking about trainspotters, there is really no connection.)

I started trainspotting as a pre-teen in the final days of steam, but laid off for a while after a brush with the law. I got back into it at 13 and for several years traveled from one end of the country to the other, on trains of course, visiting trainspotting hot spots, like stations where several different "lines" or networks connected, or sheds, the places where locomotives were serviced and stored. ("Shedding" was a real kick because there were no firm rules governing visits to sheds; a shedmaster might chase you off or invite you in, give you a tour or have you arrested, it depended on his attitude at the time.)

We usually traveled in small groups of 3 or 4, carrying flasks of tea or coffee and sandwiches our mothers had made. I'm not sure what they thought we were doing all day, but they knew we were catching the train to somewhere (that's how things were back then, parents would say "Okay boys, be careful" then drop us off at the train station). Sometimes we would save up to buy rail passes that offered unlimited travel over a period of days. Then we would pore over timetables for the entire country and execute precision planned maneovers designed to whisk us to as many hot spots as possible in a single day then get us back home in time to keep our parents from asking too many questions.

Success required intimate knowledge of geography, timetables, and station configuration. It was also helpful to have the ability to act adult and talk you way into, or out of, situations. Strategic thinking was useful as we would have to modify our plans on the fly as and when new information became available through the trainspotting grapevine (e.g. "the Hunlset sheds are practically empty this week" or "There's a new shedmaster at Fincley and he set the police after us"). Of course, you had to watch out for disinformation--other trainspotters might be try to derail your plans to class a particularly prized group of locomotives.

Which brings me back to the Duchess of Sutherland. In general, named locomotives ranked above those which had only numbers. Older locos were prized, as were some of the rarer designs. Size was not that important. A named 0-3-0 saddleback shunter of which there were only three might rate higher than a numbered 2-8-0 work horse of which there were hundreds.

By the way, the n-n-n system is a universal means of describing steam locomotives, based on the number of wheels, with the driving wheels in the middle (see Whyte system of notation). So the locomotive pictured on the left, nicely photographed by Ronald Fisher in 1960, is a 2-6-4, meaning 2 leading, non-driving wheels ahead of 6 drive wheels, followed by 4 more trailing, non-driving wheels. The wheels at the back help support the integral water and coal storage. In fact, this engine is more fully designated 2-6-4T where the "T" indicates that the water tank is integral with the locomotive (in this case on either side of the boiler). Many larger locomotives, like the 4-6-2 Duchess, had a tender to carry the water and coal.

For me, the allure of trainspotting began to fade when the powerful locomotives, steam, diesel, electric, began to give way to identical multiple units. But I retained my belief in rail as a mode of tranpsort, both high speed inter-city rail and utility lines; see my post on the Amsterdam airport train and note the image on the upper left of the blog, a TGV high speed train, photographed in the Gard du Nord, Paris, after I arrived there from Amsterdam on the Thalys, another high speed train. The lack of high speed trains in America is testament to the continuing power of oil companies and the trucking/road building lobby (favored by a certain governor turned president). Perhaps it's not surprising that I now live relatively close to decent rail service, as well as a restored train (that operates near Cooperstown). Once a trainspotter...

Does Sunset Degrade Satellite Signals? Reflections on HughesNet, Part 1

2008-05-08T19:55:00.007-04:00

Satellite Internet users are not a happy band, or so it would seem from a stroll through the forums of DSLreports, a long-running and very reputable source of info on all forms of broadband. Indeed, the front page recently highlighted HughesNet Satellite Broadband and here are some typical comments:

'Keep your dial-up you'll be happier.'
'Needs to be Reported to the FCC!'
'Use only as last resort alternative to dial up'

***I have my own comments, and they are quite extensive, so fair warning: this is a long post.***

If you think your ISP is bad, consider that Comcast cable scores 66% at DSLReports and Verizon DSL gets 65%. HughesNet is much worse, at just 51%, and even that is probably skewed in Hughes favor. Why? Because satellite is currently the only broadband option for a whole swath of the country, mainly rural areas. And that swath includes many people who are accustomed to "making the best of things." Frustrating as the HughesNet service can be, you find yourself putting up with it because there is no alternative. In reality, satellite Internet service, whether from Hughes or anyone else, is just not broadband and in the end, it's just not good enough.

Broadband implies the ability to watch streaming video, listen to streaming audio, perform software updates online, play multi-player action games online, do real-time equities trading, use voice-over-IP, and VPN to the corporate network. When you read the fine print in your satellite service contract you will find that none of these are fully supported. Some may be possible under some circumstances with a satellite connection, but they are not guaranteed, and definitely don't work well in many cases. The two main reasons for this are a. latency, and b. daily bandwidth limits. I will get to both of these in a moment.

But first, the Red Head. When you talk to HughesNet customers one thing that immediately makes them see red is "The Red Head on TV." This is how people are referring to the current HughesNet ad campaign on TV in which a preternaturally cheerful lady promises an end to nasty old dialup and the advent of broadband regardless of where you live (and apparently her hair is red--I'm color blind).

As a HughesNet customer your mind, familiar with the reality of what she is selling, rapidly discounts her promises even as she makes them. And then you get the kick in the teeth. She has the gall to end the ad with a jaunty: "You're welcome!" Like it's some kind of favor that HughesNet is doing me for $80 a month. I mean what Mad Men thought of that?

So what about the sunset? I will have to get to that in the next post.

Early Word: Roseboom Antique Power Days

2008-04-27T13:43:00.006-04:00

Not all cool technology is new. We can always learn from past technological achievements. That's why I'm looking forward already to the Tenth Annual Roseboom Antique Power Days. August 16-17, 2008.

This gathering of old tractors and other antique machinery has become quite the event in the Cherry Valley and Cooperstown area. If you can make it, expect to see dozens of antique tractors and farm machines as well as a bunch of parallel activities, like eating pancakes. Click here for the general location.

The Roseboom Antique Power Days are a great complement to your trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame and Farmers' Museum in Cooperstown. I will post more details as they become available.

Color Blind Web Sites: And other design decisions

2008-03-19T12:31:00.005-04:00

I've been doing some thinking about color blindness recently (I posted about the perception aspects of this over on my arts blog). As a color blind person I have often thought about this question: Should product designers cater to the color blind?

FYI, the cube on the left shows "normal" vision while the one on the right simulates what the same colors look like to someone with color deficiency.

By some estimates as many as 1 in 12 people have some form of color deficiency (although total color blindness is quite rare). Is that too small a minority to care about? After all, 1 in 12 people are left-handed and very few designers adjust their designs to accommodate lefties. But consider this, if you are designing technology for men, the incidence of color defectiveness is higher in men (as is, coincidentally, left-handedness--I'm not sure of the incidence of left-handed color blind men, but I am one).

What does it mean to design for color deficiency? I recently found an article in Dr. Dobb's that gives some good ideas for web designers looking to adjust designs for color deficiency. I have not yet found anything about "color-adjusting" products like electronics. One design choice that irks me, as a color deficient user of electronics, is the two-color LEDs like the ones that switch from red to green to show different states, for example, to show connected and not connected. Given that the most common form of color deficiency is referred to as "red/green deficiency" this might not be a smart design choice. You run the risk that as many as 1 in 8 of your customers a. won't be able to figure out that LED, and b. will get frustrated and disgruntled. You don't want to be the customer service person who asks "Is the LED red or green?" when the person on the other end says "I have no idea, I'm color blind."

How much more would it cost to have two LEDs? That arrangement gives you location and On/Off states to work with, which color blind people can handle (when the top traffic light is brightest it means stop, when the bottom one is brightest it means go, and so on). Then you can ask "Is the LED on the left on?" and get an accurate answer.

To be honest, and speaking as a businessperson, I don't know if catering to the color blind is a profitable path to take. But product designers might want to try it. You might be surprised how many people appreciate it.

P.S. If you are wondering about your own vision there is a site where you can do some basic tests of your color perceptions.

Pano - A better model for desktop computing

2007-11-27T19:35:00.000-05:00

Pano - A better model for desktop computing

UK Land Registry Axes Online Deeds

2007-11-05T14:33:00.000-05:00

Good example of the downside of accessibility as UK Land Registry ends online access to deeds. Relates to something I long ago term the J. J. Gittes Dilemma, after the 1930s Los Angeles private detective immortalized by Jack Nicholson in the 1974 classic "Chinatown." It takes Jake Gittes several days and several beatings to uncover a land fraud which would--arguably--take just a few hours or even minutes to uncover on the Internet today. On the other hand, the expansion of freedom of access to 'public' records

One could argue, as I am inclined to do, that the need to access some records in person, or in writing, or through licensed channels, is not an undue hindrance to access. I have yet to find a single state official who can justify making details of my property ownership in Florida available to anyone, in any country, at any time, for any reason, with no fee, process of authorization, or record of access, which is the current state of affairs.

(I'm not even sure there are any state officials who realize that a. this is the state of affairs they have created and b. it is a problem.)

HowTo: Instalar Leopard en una PC | unblogged. A blog about nothing. Yeah, nothing

2007-10-30T09:59:00.000-04:00

HowTo: Instalar Leopard en una PC | unblogged. A blog about nothing. Yeah, nothing

Brother Inkjet Issue Now on Blip.TV

2007-10-05T14:03:00.000-04:00

Okay, finally found time to edit the video I make of the "empty" Brother ink cartridge and host it at blip.tv. Using a good digital kitchen scale it looks like at least 10% of the ink remains in the cartridge after the printer declares "cartridge empty" and refuses to print.

Click To Play

Politics and Technology: Seldom a good match

2007-09-29T23:28:00.000-04:00

People who were appalled to hear the Internet described as a system of tubes by the man in congress charged with overseeing said tubes may take some comfort in the fact that said man, Republican Senator Ted Stevens, is currently under investigation for corruption. But Democrats cannot claim to be great technologists either.

Consider the mess that politics is making of technology in the Democratic state of New York. Many Americans don't realize that New York state, when considered in terms of land use, is largely a rural state. In other words, most of the state is countryside, dotted with farms and populated at low densities. Many of these rural communities struggle to provide enough jobs at sufficient salary levels to prevent young people from moving away. There is considerable economic blight.

Technologists may look at this situation and see a chance for technology to come to the rescue.
Let's install broadband Internet access so higher paying tech jobs can be located in rural communities and the agricultural sector can reap the productivity benefits that come from Web 2.0 services. Great idea. Proven to work in numerous places around the world. Except that the free market does not like providing capital intensive technology to rural areas. The only reason that rural communities in America have phone services is a Federal program of subsidy to enable "Universal Service" (financed by a small charge on your monthly phone bill). But there is strong resistant among broadband providers (now mainly phone companies) to expanding that program by defining broadband as essential. See Universal Service.

But surely liberal New York state could do something about this, offer subsidies, lobby for access to FUS funds. But no. The state politicians are opposed to expanding FUS to cover broadband because a. New York might be a net loser of FUS funds and b. FUS broadband would be federal, available in all states, not just New York and "thus deprive New York of any advantages in might gain from having a state scheme to increase rural broadband access."

Now, are you ready for a big cynical dose of irony? There is no state scheme to increase rural broadband access. Why? Could it be because state officials and politicos have been feeding at the trough of the big telcos, companies that can't be bothered to serve those very communities through which they route their trunk lines to connect big cities, where there are large pools of customers?

One ironic twist in the teclo lobbying fandango is that they have been selling politicians [who think the Internet is a series of pipes, remember] on satellite Internet service as a way to fill the gap for rural areas. How altruistic is that? Let rural users eat broadband via satellite, hence there is no need for use to wire them. Except satellite is NOT competitive with wired broadband. So it is not altruistic at all. Telcos pushing satellite in rural areas is not a conflict of interest because satellite is a dead-end for serious broadband.

Why? Two words. Latency and cap. Satellite Internet users have a bandwidth cap. Even if you pay Hughes Net $199 per month they won't give you more than 450 megabytes of bandwidth per day. If you watch streaming video over broadband you can easily consume 60 megabytes an hour. Imagine a family of four. They each could watch a few hours of streaming video in a day. Boom, there goes your limit. And the consequences are dire if you exceed that limit. You are throttled back to a plain old dial-up pace of connectivity for the next 20 to 24 hours. And don't think this is just about unfairness to YouTube addicts. These days we get clients asking use to download hundreds of megabytes of code and documentation per day.

Then there is the latency. It renders VPN use almost impossible. And VPN is the single most important technology for enabling telecommuting from rural areas!

And we haven't even talked about what happens when you get bad weather (you get bad connections, dropped packets, total loss of connectivity, snail pace response times). Then there So, satellite is amazing technology, no doubt about that, but is not at all comparable to wired broadband.

So, what are rural users to do? I expect that some of them will organize and lobby. Others will simply build their own alternatives and, hopefully, deprive the telcos of revenue. If you light up the valley with WiFi, for example, you could steal a bunch of revenue from cell and land line providers. Maybe then those land line owners will be more appreciative of the folk of who allow them to run their fibre through their valley without bothering to give the locals a taste.

Brother Ink Jet Ripoff: Class action coming

2007-09-21T21:54:00.000-04:00

Here's an update on the the Brother inkjet ripoff, namely the fact that:

a. Cartridges are declared empty when there is still ink in them.
b. You can't print anything when any of the four cartridges are declared empty.

I have now documented this in two models and comments indicate others (mine are the MFC 3820CN and the MFC 420CN). I have also found a law firm that is considering a class action law suit.

Next step to post my video of this problem and the weight readings that indicate how much ink is left when Brother says the cartridge is empty (hint is more than 5%).
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Living in Fear of GPS: Sat-nav nightmares

2007-09-18T08:14:00.000-04:00

As a species we like to think that technology holds the answer, that technology offers advantages. But does technology offer more advantages than drawbacks? I have always argued that technology itself is neutral. Whether or not the net effect of its development is positive depends upon its users, we humans.

Case in point: GPS. On a recent trip to Britain I found a phenomenon that illustrates my point rather well: sat-nav blight. This is the appearance of an increasing number of large vehicles in small towns due to lorry [truck] drivers using GPS devices that direct them on shortcuts which may, or may not, be appropriate. Here are some examples:

Sat nav leaves cheese truck stuck.
First 'ignore your sat nav' roadsigns go up.
Traffic analysis of heavy lorries on the B1078.
Sat-nav drivers land in deep water again.
End to sat-nav blight.

Sat-nav stories.

We Are The Knights Who Say Ning?

2007-09-03T14:35:00.000-04:00

I don't think of myself as easily impressed, so please check out this social networking site and see if you agree with me that it is awesome: ning.com.

I used this site to create a social network in about 15 minutes, complete with custom colors, video and audio uploading, slide show, forums, and membership invitations.

Did I miss something or is this not an amazing bargain (it's free) and a great leap forward for people who want create content rich communities to serve their needs?
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Penelope Draws Near: Prepare to beta test!

2007-08-12T15:47:00.000-04:00

And now Penelope's time is drawing near! As of 8/9/2007 the first public beta was reported to be "a few weeks" from release. This release will be a great way for lovers of Eudora to pitch in and help the developers by providing feedback.

If you're not following any of this, check my previous posting on the retirement of the Eudora email client and the evolution of the Penelope replacement.

And some readers may be asking "Why all the fuss about Eudora?" Let me try to explain. As an email client Eudora is fast and efficient. It lets you filter messages into mailboxes very easily and it lets you search any or all of those boxes in a flash, using as many criteria as you can imagine. Furthermore, it stores all of your mail and attachments in a very logical manner. All attachments go in the Attachments folder. All messages for a particular box go into an indexed text file named after the box, readily readable in an ASCII editor. I cannot recall losing a single message in 15 years due to the program 'eating' it the way Outlook is apt to do. The simplicity of file structure lets me move Eudora from one machine to another (or to a new one) without any fuss.

Eudora also does a great job of not losing or scrambling messages when a connection is dropped mid-POP. And there is a very good Junk filter. And Eudora will check all my different addresses at once. I don't think there is anything else out there that does all of that. But if there is, please let me know. I can compare it to Penelope as she enters beta.

Bluetooth Turn On: Mystery solved for Sony Vaio SZ360P and others

2007-08-12T10:27:00.000-04:00

Over the last 30 days or so I have been breaking in a new Sony VAIO. As I have done several times in the past, I purchased one of the not quite new models (in this case, the SZ360P). This strategy lets you get a pretty decent feature set and price without paying an excessive premium.

One of the reasons I chose this model is the built-in Bluetooth. I had a Bluetooth dongle that I used on my previous Sony VAIO, but the performance was quirky at best.

When I say breaking in, I mean the process whereby you remove all the built-in rubbish that you don't need and add the programs that you do need plus the data from your previous machine. (Yes, yes, I know, if I bought an Apple Macintosh I wouldn't have all this work to do, but that is a bit of us an over-simplification, as any truly honest Mac owner a would acknowledge.)

One of the things that annoys me on any Windows machine these days is the proliferation of icons in the tray in the bottom right-hand corner. In an effort to clean this up on the new machine I apparently removed a control for the Bluetooth radio. Little did I realize how difficult it would be to get my Bluetooth capability back. The past few days I have been experimenting with voice recognition software and was considering using a Bluetooth headset to do my dictation. When I came to mate the Bluetooth headset to my Sony VAIO I kept getting a message that a Bluetooth radio was not turned on. Seeing no switch by which to turn on the Bluetooth radio I was perplexed. I went online to find out if anybody else had this problem.

Isn't it wonderfully comforting to find other people posting messages about a problem? Apparently the Bluetooth radio switch is so non-obvious that some folks had been doubting whether or not their machine actually had Bluetooth installed.

So, in the hopes of helping anybody else who has questions about the Sony VAIO Bluetooth radio switch, the following pictures are posted, starting with the Vaio Central utility seen here (this can be accessed from the Start menu or the Vaio Support Central app.

Warning! Every Sony VAIO comes with a host of built-in utility programs which clog up the Start menu. I am in the habit of either removing these from the menu or bunching them all together in their own folder. In the past some of these utilities have turned out to be quite frivolous, however, the one that turns on the Bluetooth radio is quite essential, as there is no hardware switch to do this.

What you need is the Wireless Switch Settings. This brings up a dialog which is pretty obvious. If you "Enable the Bluetooth device" you turn on the Bluetooth radio. But it would help if it actually said that, and if the "Bluetooth settings" applet which you access from the Control Panel explained that.

Success in this endeavor is at least rewarded with a cool blue light on the keyboard, just above the mechanical switch that turns on/off the Wi-Fi radio. (I guess that one extra switch for the Bluetooth would have broken the design budget).

As you exist this dialog you are treated to another, which alerts you to the addition of the new icon in the taskbar. Despite my dislike for the clutter these icons create, I am leaving this one in place. Otherwise I might have to search my own blog for instructions on how to get it back.

Note: as with Bluetooth on other devices, it is a good idea to check your settings whenever you have Bluetooth active. You don't want your notebook to be discovered and access by an unauthorized user.
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Naturally Speaking I'm Blogging

2007-08-11T10:36:00.000-04:00

This is my first attempt to write a blog posting using Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I have only spent about an hour using Dragon NaturallySpeaking. So I don't think the program is fully trained yet. However, what the program is able to achieve so far is quite surprising. Everything that I have dictated up until this point, has been correct.

I am having slightly more trouble using the commands, however, they promise to be extremely useful, if for example, I am able to dictate a blog posting, copy it, then paste it into a blog post. At the moment, I am using the DragonPad application to do my dictation. It seems that the DragonPad is optimized for taking in spoken dictation. Later on I will try dictating directly into the blogger application.

The ideal situation would be to sit looking at the screen surfing the web with voice commands, and then using the Google toolbar to send webpages to my blog where I can add text and then post.

One of the things that I am interested in finding out is whether or not some of my recent reluctance to do typing is related to the pain it generates either immediately or after the fact. (Ever since the end of last year, my left shoulder and upper on inheriting during an off to typing.) Whether or not the pain has been a deterrent to typing, I am more determined than ever to pursue computed dictation as an input method for my writing.

I have tried this several times in the past, using previous editions of Dragon NaturallySpeaking and the main competitor, IBM ViaVoice. (Interesting to note, Dragon NaturallySpeaking very easily recognizes both its own name and that of IBM ViaVoice.) Each time, I eventually gave up.

In my recent reading about voice recognition software, which I can remember testing at least 10 years ago, I noticed that several people stressed the need to persist with a voice recognition program in order to get the best performance from it. Apparently, Dragon NaturallySpeaking continues to learn as you use the program. The more you use the program, the better it works. This added incentive may be enough to keep me going through some off the rough patches.

There are several surprising side effects to using voice recognition software. Personally, I am getting quite a kick out of making the computer do something with just my voice. Having something, albeit an inanimate object, obey my every come on, well it's just rather satisfying.

(Notice that in the last sentence I used the phrase "obey my every come on" but in fact what I said was obey my every command, so you can see that there are some interesting wrinkles to be worked out.)

To review, I have now dictated thus far with only one or two mistakes. Not bad for $89 (at Staples) with fairly comfortable headset included.
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Farewell Eudora, Hello Penelope: Your faihtful users await your email excellence

2007-07-10T11:02:00.000-04:00

If I had more free time, like a lot more, I would consider having a farewell party for Eudora. Which Eudora? Not Eudora Welty, the Pulitzer prize winning author? No, Eudora the email program that was named after Welty thanks to her widely anthologized short story: Why I Live at the P.O.

I have used Eudora (a dialog from which can be seen above) as my main email client for about 15 years. I have faithfully paid for upgrade after upgrade, all the way to version 7. My Eudora email archives tell the story of my life for those 15 years. The version that I have used for the last few years has a superb search feature that lets me access just about any aspect of that past in a matter of seconds.

But alas, Eudora is no more. Or rather, there will be no new versions. From 1991 to 1996 the program was supported and improved by Qualcomm, the folks who make cell phones (nod if you find that as puzzling as I do). Along the way a sponsored version was developed and the latest version of that can still be found. But the paid version is no longer sold.

Thankfully, Qualcomm made the laudable decision not to simply ditch the code and strand loyal users. The company donated the code to the Mozilla Foundation. You can found out the latest at Penelope on MozillaWiki. That's right, the new name for Eudora is Penelope. And although Penelope is not quite ready yet, she is getting there.

Hence this posting. After all, the decision to hand the code to Mozilla was last year. The official end of Eudora paid edition was May of this year. But the fact that Eudora is evolving is still news to a lot of Eudora users. I mean, I am a heavy user and I only found out by accident when I went to the web site looking for a better understanding of the Junk Mail filter (yes, it has a pretty good junk mail filter as well as a great search feature).

I think there could be millions of people out there happily using some version of Eudora not realizing what has happened. So, fellow Eudorans, go the link above and bookmark it. Soon it will be time to test and perfect a successor.
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About Brad Pitt and You: Search engine trick barks up wrong tree

2007-06-23T16:55:00.000-04:00

Pursuing my obsession with search engines [and myself] led me to enter my name into dogpile, self-described as "all the best search engines piled into one." In other words a so-called meta-search engine that pulls results from other search engines. What I found was quite interesting and applies to everyone, so you might want to try it. Go to dogpile.com and search for your exact name plus any other person, like Brad Pitt, or a place, or a thing. As an example, I put this in the search box:

"Fred Whassaname" gold

The first result from that search is a sponsored one. The second result from that search or any other search that follows the name/gold pattern, is a page at About.com that is headed "Gold Jewelry - How to Buy Gold Jewelry." The URL of this result is:
holidays.about.com/od/fashion/a/gold_jewelry.htm.

When you go to this page via the above search you will not find any mention of Fred in the text of the page, but if you search the source code of the page you will see an interesting trick at the bottom, an html IMG SCR tag that points to page at the New York Times, a page with the name in it:

http://up.nytimes.com/?d=1/&g=T&h=76NFF02820kA
012J&hs=76NFF02820kA012J&t=2&r=http%3a%2f%2fww
w%2edogpile%2ecom%2finfo%2edogpl%2fsearch%2fweb%2f
%25252522Fred%25252BWhassaname%25252522%25252Bgold
%2f1%2f%2d%2f1%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f1%2f%2d%2f%2d%2
f%2d%2f1%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d
%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2
f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%
2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d
%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2
f%2d%2f417%2ftop%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f%2d%2f1&u=http%
3A%2F%2Fholidays%2eabout%2ecom%2fod%2ffashion%2fa%
2fgold%5fjewelry%2ehtm

In other words, the New York Times, which owns About.com, makes up pages on the fly, just to meet your search criteria. Making things up is not what one would expect from the New York Times, not after it got rid of those plagiarizing journalists. And one consequence of this nasty little search hack is that you can enter your name together with that of your favorite movie star and get a bunch of hits that appear to link you with that person. But it also means you can get a bunch of hits off:

"Fred Whassaname" felon

This raises the possibility that someone could conclude, if they just go by the number of hits, that poor Fred is a felon. There's no basis for this and somehow it just feels wrong.
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The Intuitive Interface Myth: The fault of gurus and experts

2007-05-28T10:09:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I am officially fed up with the notion that graphical user interfaces are "intuitive" and "easy to use." There is nothing inherently intuitive or easy in a GUI. It all comes down to the design. Moving a mouse pointer over an icon and clicking it may look cool, may feel cool, but how easy is it for the average person? The answer depends on a variety of factors, like hand eye coordination and icon design. Half the time my screen has a bunch of icons on it the meaning of which is less than obvious. In other words, I have to learn what the icon means, I cannot simply intuit the meaning. Surely a word would be better? Yes, I know that you can turn on words for some icons, but this is inconsistent between applications and operating systems. And when you get to the web all bets are off. Some sites underline links, others don't. Some use rollovers, others don't. The same function is given different names on different sites, and so on and so forth.

How did we arrive at this situation, where computers and software are designed with interfaces that are non-obvious? Obstacles and not enablers? There are several parties to blame. Let's start with the industry giants and the wars between them that did not help (a great case study for MBA students--how the free market influences interface design--does the iPod dominate MP3 players due to interface? Did the windows wars between Apple and Microsoft help or hinder the interface evolution?).

Competition is great for some things, but when companies get fixated with one-upping the competition (in order to sell more product) there is a tendency to force software and hardware developers to add bells and whistles and do things different, even when an unadorned standard config is working fine. There is a whole book in this phenomenon, but consider one example, an interface issue that may well be the single greatest cause of lost productivity in the late nineties and early oughties (or whatever this current decade is called).

I'm talking about the way File Save works. Back in the old days, somewhere between the Pterodactyls and the 386 chip, it was "standard" for the File Save command to require confirmation, much the same way that the File Save As command does today. Suppose you had opened up the spreadsheet of weekly sales figures and updated them. When you selected File Save the spreadsheet application would ask you: Yes or No? The reason for this was obvious: You might want both versions of the spreadsheet, the one that you opened and the edited one . The latter might be very different. For example, the original might be the Megabank proposal which you had edited to become the Ultrabank proposal. You might have deleted a lot of information from the original on the way to the new version.

Obviously the File Save As command is for just such situations, but if there was one instruction that was drummed into the brains of early adopters of PC technology, back in the days when they were prone to disk crashes and brownouts and OS flakiness, it was this: Save now and save often. At that time, saving was not a destructive process. But it became one. And the Apple Mac was where it started. The Mac introduced "File Save with no overwrite confirmation." This meant you could have a problem if you opened a 10 page report, spent an hour re-writing the last 5 pages, hit File Save, then changed your mind about the changes. Even worse, open the document, perform Select All , Cut, File Save, and think about what happens if the machine hiccups before you Paste.

In all these scenarios there were workarounds that prevented them from being problematic, but they required a significant change in work flow. And for what? To make it easier to save work, a goal not necessarily accomplished without some hard lessons and tough data losses in the interim. Arguably things got worse when Microsoft Windows apps aped this style of File Save. (I well recall long distance arguments as a beta-tester with Borland as it struggled to choose the file save style for Quattro Pro--go with the new Excel/Mac "overwrite" style or stick with the traditional "confirm overwrite" style of Lotus 1-2-3.)

Windows aspired to be like Mac only different. That led to several File Save issues. One of the benefits of a graphical OS is the ability to convey more information in the same space. For example, an application could show if File Save was necessary by graying out and disabling the File Save command when the version of the document in memory was the same as that stored on the hard drive. But that feature has never been implemented consistently. That's a pity because it is really handy to know if changes have been made. Consider the task of editing a large image where the File Save command can take a long time to execute; performing unnecessary file saves in this situation is a real waste of time. The Canvas graphics program is one application that conforms to the "gray=saved" convention.

The current "saved" status of a document is particularly important when you are dealing with files that exist in two places, such as a web site you are editing locally before uploading. Fittingly, Dreamweaver MX is another app that uses the "gray=saved" convention.

I like the "gray=saved" convention but like a lot of interface conventions one cannot rely on it being there across apps or platforms. Why is this a problem? Because better and more consistent interfaces improve productivity and safety. We're all familiar with steering wheels. They allow us to jump behind the wheel of any car and navigate through traffic with a high level of expectation of success. They are a convention that car makers mess with at their peril, however much they want to "out-innovate" or "one-up" the competition. And we don't teach our kids to drive cars by telling them clockwise for starboard, anti-clockwise for port, because those are not the conventions used in driving cars. Port and starboard are for boats, where steering is sometimes a matter of push the tiller right to go left and so on. But in the early days of automobiles, some used tillers. Most people agree the wheel thing was a step forward and it has been the automotive interface standard for navigation for nearly a century. Maybe computers could use a similar period of interface standardization and stability.
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Can You Believe Your Own Google?

2007-05-14T12:35:00.000-04:00

Do you Google yourself? It sounds like rather a personal question so let me break the ice here: I Google myself, about once a week. In other words, I enter my name into the Google search box to see what comes up. Why? Because I can. Because I'm a techie. And because my ability to get new and interesting consulting assignments depends, to some admittedly unquantifiable extent, on those Google results.

But lately I've become concerned that results you get IF you are logged into Google when you Google yourself are different from those that a stranger would get.

In other, hopefully less clumsy, words: the results that Google returns about you could be different on a stranger's computer from those you get on your own computer (if you are logged into Google on that computer).

I don't know this for a fact and it is a hard fact to check because the results that Google returns can change each time you plug in the same search term (at least that is my experience). So, does anyone know the answer to this one? Does Google slant the results to you if you are logged in? This is not a trivial question and in my next post I will explain why.

P.S. My hat, indeed all three of my hats, is off to Stephen Euin Cobb who often tops me in the Stephen Cobb results. Nicely done Sir!

Pentagon to Merge Next-Gen Binoculars With Soldiers' Brains

2007-05-06T21:16:00.000-04:00

Words fail me at this point...

Pentagon to Merge Next-Gen Binoculars With Soldiers' Brains

Are you someone like me who assumed [erroneously] that the military switched from Jeeps to Humvees because Humvees were armored [and that is why they cost so much more than Jeeps]? Then you probably think hooking binocs to brains should come somewhere after putting armor on the bottom of army vehicles. I mean, did nobody in America notice the way the British had modified their Land Rovers for anti-terrorist duty in the seventies?

Technologically this next-gen stuff is cool. But I vote not to fund it until someone in that great big five-sided building stands up and says "It's about the people, stupid!"

Lovin' Our LaCie External Drive: You get what you pay for

2007-04-13T12:57:00.000-04:00

Over the years I have put together quite a few external hard drives, typically buying a bare enclosure to put around a "spare" desktop or laptop drive that had been replaced by something larger or faster. The primary use for such drives was backup storage, like a quick backup of my laptop before heading out on a trip, or archives of image libraries and business files. These are files that do not need to be clogging up my work drive, but still need to be available quite quickly from time to time.

On the whole, the external drives that I 'built' did a decent job, but they tended to be a bit noisy. Lately a new storage need emerged on our home/office network: access to large image collections, video, and music libraries. My wife's photo art was the prime mover. She's an Apple user and bought a LaCie brand external drive from the Apple Store.

I have to say at first I was a little ticked. These are not the cheapest drives and Apple Stores are not noted for their low prices. But after using it for a couple of moneys I am impressed. It is quiet. It is fast. It wakes up and goes to sleep appropriately and does not seem to skip a beat (in fact, after some reconfigurations of our home/office network we are now using it for the 80+ gigabytes of iTunes content we have accumulated.). While LaCie drives always seem to price out slightly more expensive than the competition, this could be a genuine case of "They're worth it."

Recently I noticed some decent prices on Amazon.

The Intuitive Interface Myth: Why computers aren't any easier to use than they used to be

2007-04-05T16:08:00.000-04:00

Back in the early Post-Columbrian era I taught computer classes, hundreds of them. Four hours each, these classes covered: Computer Basics, Word Processing, Spreadsheets, and Operating System. After taking those classes you would know how to turn on a computer, create/save/print a document or spreadsheet, and make a backup copy of your work on removable media. You would also know the difference between memory and storage, RAM and ROM, and be able to answer qustions like "where does my work go wen the power goes out?"

Just 16 hours or two work days. Done and dusted. Or spend another four hours with me (or one of the dozen or so other trainers at our company) and you could build your own databases.

All of this without any "easy-to-use, intuitive graphical user interface." No hard-to-decipher icons, no tricky point-and-click devices, just simple taps on clearly labeled keys. Now, more than two decades later, a frightening number of office workers and home users have less clue about how to do their work and operate their computers than graduates of those archaic classes.

Why? The answer is going to be in some of my next postings. Meanwhile, consider this test. How easy and intuitive is A versus E? Twenty years ago option E was readily available and clearly labeled on the screen. Todays' screens are bigger, and have a lot more than two colors, but are applications any easier to use? I would argue No. Especially when if you want to talk about web apps, where almost every site has a different user interface (links are underlined, not underlined, underlined only on hover, colored differently, appear only when the arrow is over them, an icon not text, text not an icon, etc, etc).

I would hazard a guess that less than half of all people who use computers in their work today have received anything more than 4 hours of training on how to operate a computer. And that's a hazard, and accident waiting to happen, probably already happening if you dug a little deeper into the constant stream of security breaches being reported.
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Cardiologists Using MP3s for Training

2007-03-26T14:23:00.000-04:00

In the same vein [nice pun, eh] as my posting about the $30 heart monitor comes this Newsweek story about medical students using iPods to learn the sounds of unhealthy hearts. "Rocking out to 'aortic regurgitation.'"

Which reminds me, if anyone knows what is up with the heart in this clip my friend would love to get a second opinion.

Treo 650 Dying? No shift! Treo 680 review coming soon

2007-03-26T12:01:00.001-04:00

Alas, my beloved Treo 650 is sick. Apparently, a recent fall injured the Shift key which jams in the shifted position. This has had a ripple effect on the keyboard and functionality. I am off to England to do some consulting and will have to manage with the 650 until I return, by which time my 680 should have arrived. As they say, shift happens, sometimes too much.

Terabyte Storage Slips Under $400: Western Digital on sale at CompUSA

2007-03-18T19:37:00.000-04:00

I blogged about the domesticated terabyte a while back, and now you can buy one for under $400 at CompUSA. As I understand it, there are two drives in the box and you can use them as a single volume or have a 500 megabyte volume drive with RAID backup/redundancy on the other. Maybe the Easter Bunny will bring me one.

Clock Update

2007-03-11T18:54:00.001-04:00

Finally getting over that whole DST thing with the US/EU offset. Here's a nice applet that lets you set a bunch of clocks for reference based on a bunch of world city listings. And My Google has a nice clock for tracking a couple of time zones at once.

Oh, and here is how you set the clock on my JVC KD-G720 car stereo. Took me ages to find this.

Free to the World: Cobb's $30 heart sound monitor

2007-03-11T18:39:00.001-04:00

Okay, here's a nice way to combine some simple tech items to get high value results at a low cost.

The Challenge: Doctors need a way to listen to the heart beat of patients who are experiencing episodes of irregular heart beat. Past technology has focused on recording heart beat for extended periods of time hoping to catch the episode, useful for some things, but not this intermittent, periodic problem. Plus they are costly and inconvenient to use.

The Solution: Provide patients with a small and convenient device that records heart beat on demand in a format that is easy to transmit to the doctor.

Background: A few years ago my heart started beating funny, not all the time, just sometimes. No, let me re-phrase that: A few years ago, this friend I have, his heart started to beat funny (you never know when the insurance companies will start spidering blogs for evidence of health conditions that could justify even higher premiums).

This friend went to a cardiologist whose nurse wired him [my friend] into a harness that listened to his heart and was supposed to fit under his shirt (like the kind of 'wire' you might see in a crime caper comedy). After 24 uncomfortable hours my friend reported back and a reading was taken from the listening device. But not much showed up and my friend was finding it hard to time his visits to the doctor with the odd heart beat.

So I invented a cheap portable patient-operated heart sound reporting system. I bought a $30 Wombsong foetal monitor at Walmart, the kind you use to listen to your baby before it is born. Then I connected an audio recorder via the monitor's headphone output socket.

When my friend felt his heart beating 'funny' he could lay this thing on his chest and record the sound. This setup could record the sound digitally, with an iPod, a Treo, or any number of digital recorders, so this friend could then, theoretically, email the file to his cardiologist (if his cardiologist would only read his email).

In Practice: It worked like this. We recorded an episode on a pocket tape recorder then transferred that to the computer, reduced the background noise with Gold Wave (a terrific shareware audio editor) and saved it as an mp3. At his next visit with his cardiologist my friend pulled out his Treo and played the recording to a very impressed doctor. Much medical enlightenment was gained.

Of course, he could also have blogged the recording like this (click arrow to play, or click the song title to play in your default player):

Heartbeat recorded on $30 device

Now, after that fleeting moment in which I dreamed of a multi-million dollar IPO of Cobb's Cool Cardio Kit [NASDAQ: CCCK] the right thing to do reared its beautiful head: share this with the world for free. Now anyone with $30 and a little bit of tech-savvy (or a friend thus endowed) can take the sound of their heart to the doctor. Hopefully some lives can be saved, as well as a lot of money better spent on other things.

But woe betide anyone who seeks to cash in on this invention, with the possible exception of the people who already make the foetal monitors and can easily re-purpose them for this (add the instructions for recording to an iPod or rework design to include an mp3 recorder and/or USB connection and/or removable flash storage).

Tech Notes:

Recording--direct to digital makes a lot of sense but a lot of digital recorders don't record to mp3 (I have used Sony and Panasonic devices that record in their own formats) and this means you often have to do some sort of conversion so that the file is in a format accessible to the doctor or the playback device. Dumping the recording to a PC/Mac app like GoldWave makes conversion easy and allows clean-up. GoldWave has this great filter that lets you select a 'silent' section and filter based on that, in other words, a moment of space between explicit sounds will show the background noise and that can be filtered out in one step. , or play the sound back from the recording device, which is easy enough to do with an iPod or Treo).

Foetal monitor--is used for the recording because it is already designed to make internal body sounds audible. There is no great rick to this, just a properly tuned pickup at the narrow end of a cone-shaped, sound-focusing opening on the bottom surface of the unit that lays on the patient's body (over the heart when used in this invention). I used a WombSong, so named because it also allows you to play music to your unborn child (a scary notion given the musical tastes of some parents). These are now available for quite a bit less than $30 and since you can get a cheapr recorder for about $10, you can still make the whole thing for around $30.

Note that this is NOT your fancy "medical quality" foetal monitoring unit. It does not need to be. Check the recording above and you will hear that this is exactly what the cardiologist needed to hear, and would probably not have heard if "my friend" had not recorded it.

Did You Survive DST? The difference in US/EU time difference is the one to watch

2007-03-11T18:05:00.000-04:00

Hopefully everyone's technology handled DST okay last night. I got a last minute reminder to update my Treo 650 which was handled very smoothly.

I already blogged the US/EU disconnect elsewhere, but it is worth repeating here, especially for people working trans-Atlantic, which I happen to be at the moment.

I am working on a security project for a fairly large UK company, together with someone from California, as part of a team based in London. The "DST offset" makes figuring flight times and setting up conference calls tricky.

This particular project will be over before the Autumn, but check out the time lag that happens in October of this year. New York goes six hours behind London, and of course that puts LA a full nine hours behind...which is darned inconvenient. When you have a London office meeting at 4PM and that is 7AM for LA, some folks are going to be sleepy from a hard day's work and others will be dozy from a hard day's night.

So, has anyone calculated the supposed energy savings of this whole fiasco, versus the technology upgrade costs?

Clickcaster Works: A real sign that broadband and streaming are taking us to the next level

2007-02-19T22:50:00.001-05:00

Lately I've been playing with ClickCaster, a site that offers free pod-casting and video-casting facilities. So far I am very impressed. Making and publishing a podcast was amazingly easy. You can hear the results here.

In less than 4 weeks I have had 250 feed views, 44 downloads, and 30 subscribers. That's for just my first two podcasts (statistics are one of the many nice things about Clickcaster).

Unfortunately I caught a really nasty cold about two weeks ago and really lost momentum with my recordings (yep, da cold wad dat bad id blocked my dose and bade my voice sound fuddy). I hope to put out some more podcasts mid-March.

To anyone who was experimenting with the web ten years ago over a 28Kbps modem, the ability to record good quality audio to a web site and instantly stream it is just so, well it almost chokes you up. All the elements have been around for a long time, but now they are coming together, very nicely in the case of ClickCaster.

Security Issues? Head to scobbs.blogspot.com

2007-02-17T10:47:00.000-05:00

Right now I am trying to keep my security insights separate from my technology rants and raves. So if you are looking for security postings they are now at scobbs.blogspot.com. That will allow me to keep stuff like the electric loo separate from more serious issues like threats to data and privacy. After all, some things are more serious than others. I mean, getting sprayed in the face by an electric toilet might seem very threatening at the time, especially when you haven't slept for 24 hours. But it is not likely to usher in the end of the Internet as we know. Is it?

p.s. scobbs.blogspot.com now has several free security and privacy podcasts.

Right Up Front: 01-20-09 and a cool online sign service

2007-02-09T23:19:00.001-05:00

I've been getting a lot of compliments lately on my license plate, my fake front license plate, as permitted under Florida law which only requires an official license plate on the rear of your vehicle.

This cell phone photo does not really do it justice as there is a hint of red around the black numbers, all sharply printed on a solid acrylic sign. And all designed by me, using the services of SignsByYou.com. If you scroll down that page you will see a blank plate. Select that and you have a fairly nifty design tool with which to create your own plate. The quality of the results and shipping time are both excellent. A good example of how technology expands personal expression.

(A word of caution: my wife was pulled over in New York state for having a "novelty plate" on the front of her Florida registered vehicle. The novelty plate, purchased in New York City, was in the style of normal New York plates and the letters were: U.S.A. Can't get more patriotic and law-abiding than that, right? Wrong. She avoided a ticket, but only after the first cop called for backup, I kid you not. So I guess you might want to avoid any custom designs that look too much like the real thing. The real kicker for my wife was the fact that the tag on her Florida plate had expired--and the policeman never noticed. Phew!)

The Geek's Commode: From the land of the electric loo

2007-02-04T23:47:00.000-05:00

Normally I avoid blogging something more than once, but what you see on the right is a worthy exception: a high-tech toilet, a john with juice, a head that's wired, a bog with brains, it is an electric loo.

I encountered this in a hotel near Incheon airport in Korea. Maybe it struck me as amazing because I encountered it after being awake for 32 hours (apart from the sort of fake sleep you get in coach class when all the seats are full and even in you get an aisle seat you can't stretch out for fear of food carts crushing your feet).

But amazing it is, and a great example of how technology still has the power to transform a truly (hopefully) everyday aspect of our lives. And I don't just mean because it gives us more buttons to push (although there are twelve on this thing for those who are counting). I mean that this thing is transformational technology because this it does away with the need for toilet paper, which is a huge boon to the environment. Exactly how it does that I will leave to your imagination dear reader. Suffice to say, you don't want to push the buttons unless your butt is in position.

Ink Jet Printer Cartridge Rip-Off? Brother 3820CN won't print without removing cartridge that still has ink

2007-02-01T00:16:00.000-05:00

I was going to write something nice about Brother recently because I continue to find their 3820CN to be an eminently useful machine. It makes good copies and does printing, scanning, and faxing over my home network. It has a very reliable paper feed which is unusual at this price point. Furthermore, Brother recently repaired my 3820CN free of charge even though it was, strictly speaking, out of warranty. However, something happened today that needs to be addressed.

The control panel told me the Cyan cartridge was empty (the printer has cartridges for Black, Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow). I took the Cyan cartridge out and found it was not empty. I put it back in but could not get the machine to accept that there was still ink to be used up. This means I paid for ink that was not used. Furthermore, when any one of the four cartridges is empty the 3820CN will not print. It won't even print in black, as far as I can tell, if a color cartridge is reported to be empty. This means faxing is impaired because the fax confirmation will not print (even though it is a black and white document).

Now, I am not accusing Brother of anything, not yet. I am prepared to think this was an isolated incident, not a devious corporate plot to sell more ink. I have used Brother printers since 1982 (yep, way back in the good ole daisy wheel days). I will hold off any sort of judgment until I get a response to the letter I am sending them. But I am blogging what happened in case anyone else has had the same problem. Please let me know.

Meanwhile I am sending the 'not empty' cartridge to Brother to ask for a refund. And I will update this post with some pictures as soon as I can.

No More Ham, Eggs, & SPAM: Blog categories revised

2007-01-27T14:59:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I admit that I didn't get the point of categories when Blogger first introduced labels. So there I was, merrily labeling my posts with all manner of terms. For example, a post about email security had the following labels: AOL, ham eggs and spam, Microsoft, spam, TurnTide, Yahoo.

Now I have realized the error of my ways and have revised the labels to create meaningful categories. After all, if you want to find any of my posts that deal with ham or USB or AOL you can always use the Search function. I don't plan to have separate categories for those subjects.

For a start, the blog is Cobb on Technology, so there is no need for a technology label. Technology is assumed to be the subject of every post (however tenuous the link might be). There is a need for a general category that includes housekeeping posts like this one that you are reading right now.

And a humor category will denote posts that are [supposed to be] amusing or at least light-hearted. Different kinds of security are given their own category, but most of my security posts are done at scobbs.blogspot.com. A category that is likely to cover a lot of posts right here is "Gotchas."

Gotchas include all manner of quirks, snafus, annoyances, like the fact that there is no Backspace key on Macs and no grayed out File Save command in Microsoft Office apps to let you know something has been saved, or the fact that PS/2-to-USB adapters rarely work and Control-Tab doesn't work the way it should in Microsoft Word. Of course, some posts will have more than one label, like this one, which is mainly 'general' but also now contains some 'gotchas.'

So, I hope this reformed approach to labeling will be useful and make the blog more accessible.

PS on DST: Vista is pre-fixed, Mac OS X 10.4.6 also

2007-01-24T17:35:00.000-05:00

After my posting a few days ago on the changes to Daylight Saving Time in the US that will be happening this year, it occurred to me that I might have raised more questions than I answered. In fact--surprise, surprise--I still don't have ALL the answers. But here a few more that might be helpful.

Q. How long until the change?
A. 47 days (March 11 is the first time the new DST rules go into effect, but there is another date of importance, October 28, 2007, which is when you might have expected DST to end, but in fact it will end November 4).

Q. What about Windows Vista?
A. Vista is aware of the new rules. You have to remember that, back in the summer of 2005--when a change to DST rules was mandated--Microsoft was talking "second half of 2006" as ship date for Vista. And the perpetual optimism in Redmond probably led coders to think a large percentage of PCs would be running Vista in time for the change.

Q. What about Mac OS X?
A. The version 10.4.6 update set the clock straight, so to speak, for Mac users. BTW, that update was released in March of 2006, considerably in advance of the Microsoft patch for XP.

Q. What about my iPod? Palm? Treo?
A. I am still looking into how these devices, which all have date and alarm functions, will handle the DST rule change.

Q. What's that weird clock at the top of the post?
A. It's a clock made out of computer parts. The face is a hard drive platter and it's reflecting my hands holding the camera as I took the picture (with a Sony DSC-T1). As the song goes: "It's always 5 o'clock somewhere."
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USB in the SUV? JVC car stereo lets you plug in MP3s via USB as well as iPod

2007-01-24T08:34:00.000-05:00

When I first saw this idea I knew I had to check it out: a car stereo with a USB port on the face plate. In other words, you can put tunes on a USB thumb drive and play them in the car. In fact, I liked the idea so much I now have a JVC KD-G720 installed in my Jeep, as shown here.

Oddly enough, JVC seems to have dropped this particular model. When I went to get a link to listing at Circuit City (which is where I got mine) the search came up empty. Over at Crutchfield the model is listed as "no longer available." There are some links here that might work. Note how happy the reviewers sound--so it is not just me. I gave the unit a good write-up on epinions and also put in aq good word for Circuit City which had the unit installed in under an hour, for under $240 including the iPod connection in the glove box.

Obviously an iPod playing through the car stereo can be a life-saver on road trips and a lot of units are now offering this, either via a simply AUX connection, or through an intelligent link, like this unit, where you can select songs and functions, like shuffle, through the faceplate controls. But it was the USB port that really caught my eye. By using a USB adapter I can quickly take the SD card of tunes out of my Treo 650 and plug them into my car radio (there is a one gig limit ,but that is still a decent chunk of music). I can do the same thing with Sony Memory Sticks--drag a bunch of songs from iTunes on my Vaio laptop to a stick and stick it in the car.

Why would I do that instead of use my iPod? Just seems easier sometimes. Several mixes that I really like are already set up on SD cards for my Treo. Besides, I have my iPod docked in my home streo a lot of the time and it is a lot heavier than a USB key...and oh heck, maybe I'm just lazy.

Anyway, if you do like the idea of using a USB drive for tunes, this is the unit to play them. If you set up six different folders on the USB device the JVC KD-G720 will treat them as different CDs (the same holds true with MP3 CDs, which this unit also plays). You get song title info displayed and a number of shuffle options (within folder, across folders).

What Comes Next? Try Brussin's blog

2007-01-21T22:53:00.000-05:00

There's a new tech-oriented blog on the block and I'm betting it will become a "must-read" for anyone serious about Web 2.0, Business 2.0, and the whole intersection of technology and business. The blog is called "What Comes Next" and the blogger is David Brussin.

While David Brussin might not be a household name in high tech households, I would add the caveat "yet." I've been in the high tech field for over 25 years and have yet to encounter a sharper mind than Brussin's. It was no coincidence that he was named to the 2004 list of the world's 100 Top Young Innovators by Technology Review, MIT's Magazine of Innovation. Brussin has that rare combination of a. technical brilliance (he was building serious commercial networks before he graduated from high school) and b. business acumen (he had co-founded two successful hi-tech startups before he was thirty, and both were snapped up by public companies).

Then there is c. he is very articulate. So, not only does Brussin come up with valuable and sometimes highly complex insights, he can put them into full sentences that are easily understood. Now, you sometimes meet people who have a or b or c. Occasionally you meet people with two of the three, but rarely do you encounter someone who has all three AND a sense of humor AND above average scores in tact and diplomacy.

So check out Brussin's blog. I hope you find it as interesting as I do.

Of all the Dumb Things: Patching XP for daylight saving change

2007-01-19T18:26:00.000-05:00

For once there is an XP patch that has nothing to do with Microsoft programming errors! Thanks to the meddling of America's congress-critters, your Windows XP machine needs to be patched in the next 50 days or it will not properly reflect the change to Daylight Saving Time.

The XP patch is here but I suggest you read this Microsoft KnowledgeBase page first. It covers things that could go wrong and other Microsoft code.

When does Daylight Saving Time begin in 2007? March 11. Whaaauh? March? Yes, thanks to a law passed in August of 2005 as part of President Bush's mammoth energy bill, DST comes three weeks early in all states (except Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Arizona (with the exception of the Navajo Nation, which observes DST even in Arizona, due to its large size across three states) [deep breath]).

With all the embedded OSes out there and just about everything we use running on code these days, a lot of it date-sensitive, the probability of a miniature Y2K event in 2007 is definitely not zero.

And guess what? Congress has the right to change DST back to the way it was if they don't like these new dates. Personally, just personally, I have never liked DST and think it is more trouble than it is worth. This would seem to prove my point. About the only change worth making to the dates that have existed unchanged for the last 20 years in America would have been to bring us in line with the Europeans (see the table here). But noooo, Bush had to be different-er.
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I'm Loving IT: Humor for geeks

2007-01-18T10:15:00.000-05:00

Recently I was writing a column about computers and romance for the February--as in Valentine's Day--issue of a regional 'lifestyle' magazine (how I get talked into these things I don't know). Anyway, it brought to mind one of my favorite Dilbert cartoons. That same cartoon also came to mind when I was writing my previous post about 'loving technology.' But then I discovered something sad, a lot of young people had never seen the cartoon. And then I figured out why: it first appeared in 1995! Heck, some CTOs weren't even teenagers then. So, here it is:

And as an added bonus, here is a link that leads to just about every Dilbert strip ever, arranged in superbly simple one-click reading order. You can ~~waste~~ spend literally hours reading these.

In some ways the early- to mid-nineties were the golden age of Dilbert and I encourage you to stock up on some of the collections from that period (Shave the Whales is a good place to start). Here's a list to get you started. Enjoy! And remember, if the boss catches you reading Dilbert, you are doing anti-competitive lifestyle market research by thinking outside the box and running a straw man up the flagpole to see which way the wind blows in order to optimize the mission statement going forward, thus getting all hands onboard with the primary goal setting agenda-ism.

PS/2 to USB Adapters Don't

2007-01-15T20:33:00.000-05:00

Just bought a couple of small converter plugs that allow you to plug a PS/2 keyboard into a USB socket. But guess what? They don't work. I have scoured the net to find out why and the basic answer seems to be that PS/2 to USB adapters are a kludge and very unpredictable (people use them for mice as well as keyboards, apparently with very mixed results).

Boo hiss I say. I wanted to use my lovely old IBM PS/2 keyboard on my laptop to reduce the wrist strain from all this blogging, but noooo. Looks like it ain't gonna happen. Now I have to go through the whole send-it-back process. What a pain. If things are known not to work reliably they should say on the package: May not work with all PS/2 devices. I would have given these things a miss and carried on my search for a good USB keyboard.

A Hot and Happy New Year

2006-12-31T23:28:00.001-05:00

I just noticed that, thanks to the wonders of Internet technology, and some good-hearted humans, the ancient annual ritual of the Biggar Bonfire is being broadcast this New Year. Check out the webcam link lower down the page. Seems a nice way to share the spirit of the season and a good excuse to wish everyone around the world a Happy and Prosperous 2007! May your pixels stay bright and your bits not byte.

If you are into this seasonal stuff, there is also a webcam to cover another Scottish seasonal phenomenon, the Maeshowe, a Neolithic monument on Orkney "that catches the last rays of the dying sun each winter solstice." Sorry this posting is too late for this year, but you can put it in your Google calendar for December 21, 2007.

Thanks to Wikipedia, another wonder of Internet technology+good people, you can learn the connections between different Yule celebrations (some of which are very pagan and Norse it would seem). Including your own virtual log fire.

[Updated 1/7/07: Just noticed this additional Christmas+New Year+Yule+fire connection, the Orthodox Christmas celebration, an example of which is here.]

Technology and Risk Displacement: Not just a theory

2006-12-27T10:12:00.000-05:00

Okay, so this entry is going to be 'big picture' and I don't mean plasma TVs. Basically, it's just some thoughts about technology in a broad sense, beyond just chips and bits, but starting with something specific, a story in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about toxic chemicals in our homes and in our, well, in us. And if you want a direct connection to the digital world, our computers are one source of these chemicals.

Like a lot of people, I feel strongly about technology. It would be true to say I 'love' technology, at least for a certain definition of 'love.' I'm not talking about the wide-eyed way I sometimes look at my Treo 650 while contemplating the awesome fact that this small and almost perfectly formed object can take dictation, place and receive phone calls, fetch and send email, and, even as it plays one of my 521 most favorite songs, zoom in on satellite imagery of just about anyone's house, anywhere on the planet [courtesy of Google Earth, some restrictions may apply]. That's not love, that's infatuation.

The love relates to the hugely positive changes technology has enabled during my lifetime (early 1950s to circa Now). That includes everything from indoor plumbing to air bags, polio vaccine to organ transplants, jet planes to this here Internet, that sometimes takes the bits and bytes I write out into space and back to earth, in seconds. You get the picture (and my picture, in the upper right-hand corner, viewable from web browsers in just about every country on the planet).

However, I would never advocate unconditional love for technology. My father was an engineer and so I got an up-close education in applied technology from an early age. I remember him pondering the challenge of stopping a jumbo jet after it had landed (he worked for Dunlop, which built the brakes and tires for the 747, which do most of the stopping--he had designed thrust reversers not long after jet engines were deployed in civilian aviation, but they don't do as much to stop planes as you might think). We often pored over blueprints on the kitchen table and I would spend time in his workshop where he 'tinkered' with all manner of tools and materials.

I particularly remember him working with asbestos, which has highly prized engineering properties. Apart from simple insulation, it was used in brake pads and in the handling of molten metals for castings. It was used extensively in ships and my father served as an engineer in the Royal Navy during WWII. He died of respiratory cancer not long after his fiftieth birthday.

Long before I became involved with computers I had formed several thoughts about technology. I decided technology itself was neutral, the classic case in point being nuclear technology, which enables hugely destructive bombs and power generation without fossil fuels. Growing up during the Cold War, the threat of nuclear annihilation was a daily worry, to me at least, particularly after my mother took me on a 'Ban the Bomb' march when I was eight. But England in the 1950s was a very smoggy place, with terrible air quality in most big cities. A lot of air pollution has been avoided by the generation of 'clean' fuel through nuclear reaction. Yet each benefit has an offset. Disposing of spent nuclear fuel is no small problem. And each downside has an upside. For example, since the nuclear bomb has been widely deployed the stand-off inherent in mutually assured destruction means there have been no world-wide armed conflicts.

So first I decided that technology itself is neutral (applied technology not so much). And then I entertained the thought that no single technology produces a net gain. Clean fuel, dirty residue. Increased mobility through automotive transportation, increased pollution. Greater travel, wider spread of disease. Heat resistance, lung disease. Greater access to useful data, greater exposure of private data. You can go on and on. As you do so, you'll probably think of mitigating factors. After all, new technologies are frequently developed that counter or avoid the downside of earlier technologies. No more lead in paint, no more asbestos in brake shoes, and so on. But remember my premise: 'no single technology produces a net gain.'

Take flame retardants. They reduce the risk of fire, the extent of fire damage, and probably save lives. You will find them in clothes, car seat cushions, computer wires, and the dust on your desk. And now we find that traces of potentially toxic flame retardant chemicals are showing up in people, and building up in their blood and tissue. What is more, chemicals long banned are still showing up.

This is risk displacement. It occurs in many areas of life. Consider seat belts. They save lives, right? But some studies have shown that people wearing them drive worse than people who are not. I'm particularly upset with those car commercials where people who are busy chatting away while driving get hit by another car and walk away. Are we doing enough testing of the phenomenon that, the more someone feels that technology makes crashing survivable, the more likely they are to crash?

Risk displacement also occurs in computer security. Closing down an avenue of attack does not in itself reduce the total sum of effort and resources that will going into attacks. The attacks will find a different path. Which brings us back to the big picture. Attacks on computers will only diminish when the general standard of human behavior improves. That is not an impossible goal. The amount of drunk driving going on today is less than it was. That is not a result of changes in technology but of changes in people. The lesson is not to look to technology for answers it cannot provide, and not expect a new technology to be all upside and no downside.

Your Tax Dollars at Work: Feds pay Google for dud drug hits?

2006-12-26T21:41:00.000-05:00

This is something I may post in several places. It's about politics. It's about America's screwed-up health care. It's about technology. Our beloved federal government is apparently bidding on Google with your tax dollars. The goal? Top the results from searches for certain drugs, like Valium, in order to warn taxpayers that buying such drugs without a prescription could land them in jail.

Check out this screen shot from earlier today. The DEA is sponsoring one result, the US Customs has paid for the other (unless Google is donating these spots, which I doubt very much).

These agencies seem to be bidding for the top spots in several searches, including Xanax, Oxycontin, "pain killers." Does anyone else besides me think this is a just a bit weird. There are many reasons why people search for information about certain drugs. Is it a good use of taxpayer money to pay to deliver this message as a result?

One thing is for sure, the US Customs office is flat out wasting money with all its ads. Why? Because all the ones I clicked led to a 'page not found' message like this:
In other words, every time someone clicks one of those listings paid for by Customs, they get an error. And speaking of clicking...do you think those agencies realize anyone with a grudge against them can sit and click those things all day to run up their Google bill?

I'd sure love to hear from anyone who has inside information on these programs.

No, It's Not My Imagination: Spam is on the rise (again)

2006-12-22T11:39:00.000-05:00

I thought it was just my imagination, a big and fairly rapid increase in the amount of spam I've been getting these past few months. I was wondering what I had done to deserve this. But it turns out I was not alone, according to the Washington Post:

More than 90 percent of all e-mail sent online in October was unsolicited junk mail, according to Postini,...Spam volumes monitored by Postini rose 73 percent in the past two months as spammers began embedding their messages in images to evade junk e-mail filters that search for particular words and phrases. In November, Postini's spam filters, used by many large companies, blocked 22 billion junk-mail messages, up from about 12 billion in September.

What a waste of technology! And you know what I'm going to say. First, a more widespread deployment of Symantec's TurnTide technology would reduce that number (and no, I don't make a penny off that technology and I own zero shares in Symantec). Second, someone ought to sue the three companies that could have stopped spam 5 years ago if they had listened to reason and agreed to work with each other: Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo.

p.s. Mr. Gates, are you ready for the one year anniversary of the end of spam (as predicted by you) coming up on January 24, 2007, I believe?

Turntide Still Working Away: Not perfect but pretty close

2006-12-05T22:44:00.001-05:00

"Not perfect but pretty close" is what this Computerworld article concluded about the anti-spam technology I helped create a few years ago.

It was maybe early 2001 when I was sitting around a table in a basement in Pennsylvania with a couple of friends discussing ways of fighting spam. Back then there were not many people who believed spam would become a huge problem. Many dismissed it as a mere nuisance. Boy, were they wrong.

Anyway, we had been focusing on a way of certifying email as legitimate, so only legitimate email would be allowed to get through to your inbox. This was the inverse of attempts to stop spam by allowing all email in unless it came from a known bad source. Early anti-spam products were emerging that followed the allow-all-but-known-bad model, including some attempts to filter messages on a case-by-case basis according to their content. But a couple of us were skeptical about this approach. It seemed to be based on an anti-virus scanning model (and we all knew how well that was working--not!). Furthermore, when these filter systems produced false-positives that meant valuable messages might be delayed or lost.

So we analyzed spam from the spammers perspective. What was the motive? What would be a dis-incentive? Virus writers were not being deterred by legal penalties and so we doubted that approach would dissuade spammers. But we realized spammers are different from your classic virus writers: spammers are in it for the money.

So we followed the money. What we found was a fairly simple formula. If a spammer can't get X number of messages into network N within Y period of time, the spammer will move on to the next network, N1, and so on. This is because the spammer makes money off such a tiny percentage of responses. To be cost-effective there have to be huge numbers of messages delivered on target within the relatively short period of time that exists before a particular spam site is shut down.

Aha! we said. If only there was a way to slow down messages from spammers. One of us, David Brussin, realized that there was a TCP/IP mechanism for slowing down network response, and we figured out how we could couple that to a spam detector mechanism. The result was a device that sat on the edge of a network, or at an ISP, and slowed down network connections if they appeared to be delivering spam. The first test results were amazing. The device, dubbed "SpamSquelcher" after those knobs on ship radios which tune out noise, literally saved a regional ISP from being overwhelmed by spam.

Selling this idea to end-users was a tough one. The device worked best on larger networks. This was not something you could give away to end-users for free and hope that big companies would pay for licenses. Eventually the product was re-launched as TurnTide and acquired by Symantec which incoporated it into their product line. Today there are a lot of corporate and academic networks using this technology to save bandwidth and protect their networks. If a lot more of them would do the same, particularly ISPs, then the net voume of spam might actually go down.

Cool Firefox Trick: The "get me out of here" option

2006-12-02T13:46:00.000-05:00

I have previously posted about the problems of deceptive URLs, one small aspect of the whole phishing industry. I think I have also noted that one of the reasons I like Eudora as an email client is the warnings it provides when a deceptive URL is present in an email message.

Well, on the left you can see a related feature in Firefox, my browser of choice. It's the "get me out of here" option that appears when you have navigated to a suspect web site. I think it was a stroke of interface genius to provide a simple link that says "Get me out of here!" When you click that link you are indeed taken away from the site, to the Firefox home page. If you opt to "Read more" you will reach a nice little tutorial on phishing and the anti-phishing feature in Firefox.

Nice one Firefox!

Free Enterprise Security Advice Could Save Thousands in Customer Care Costs

2006-11-30T10:57:00.000-05:00

When your company has to notify its customers about a change to online security procedures and decides to use email as part of that notification, make sure that the email message does NOT contain any deceptive URLs. Otherwise the email may confuse a lot of customers who end up contacting your company, putting a dent in the customer service budget and thus the bottom line.

Before you say something like "My company would never use a deceptive URL" be sure you know what deceptive URLs are and how they arise, because they can seem innocent enough. Indeed, I have seen them slip under the quality control radar at big companies like Bank of America and Countrywide that do at least have quality control. Typically a deceptive URL is created by or within html email. Here is an example:

Note that I edited the screen shot above to obscure the name of the company that sent this particular message (about new security measures) and my own email address is also edited to something bogus.

Basically this part of the email is inviting recipients to log in to the company web site. The URL of the site is spelled out rather than just being a click here type link. People often spell out links in order to make it clear to the user where the link leads. In text-only email a URL has to be spelled out in order to work (in most email clients). But the above message is html and so the link text is actually within an href=URL tag. This means that the apparent URL can be different from the actual URL in the link, a fact that phishing scams have been exploiting for years. For example, you might see a link to www.paypal.com in a message that appears to be from PayPal, but in fact the link leads to:
http://202.78.2.22/.paypal/secure/login/webcsr/cmd=_login-submit/index.htm
or
http://0x44.0xec.0xb3.0xd0/www.paypal.com/index.htm
both of which are bogus web sites that are in no way connected with the real PayPal.

How do you know where a link goes before you click it? One way is to view the source code of the message, something that is easy enough to do in most email clients (in Eudora, for example, you just right click anywhere within the message and select "View Source"). However, viewing email source, while easy, is laborious, and so a good email client will reveal the URL of a link when you put your mouse pointer over it, then warn you if the link you are about to click is deceptive (i.e. does not match the text of the link). Eudora has this capability and provides further detail like this:
And here you see the problem this poses for an otherwise legitimate company. Good old Countrytom wants you to go to a special page at countrytom.com, but presumably did not want to put that great big [but genuine] URL in the text of the email. So they obscured it but in so doing set off the deceptive URL alarm. As email clients and web browsers get more aggressive in the fight against phishing this sort of thing is likely going to show up more often, thereby confusing more customers. And everyone in enterprise-land knows that more confused customers = increased customer service burden.

So what is the solution. Here is the real money tip in this free security advice: use a simple URL. Could it be that simple? Yes. There is no reason, other than a lack of imagination, for Countrytom to use that great big long URL for a response to email. Sure, marketing would like to track where responses are coming from, and IT might balk at some extra work with redirects and site structure, but a simple phrase and a few lines of code could fix that, as in any of these URLs that could easily appear in the text of the email AND the URL so as not to be branded as "deceptive" by the email client:
www.countrytom.com/confirm
www.countrytom.com/login112306
www.countrytom.com/112306
www.countrytom.com/no34

None of these strikes me as a turn-off for recipients and I bet they generate less customer confusion than the pesky but otherwise very helpful deceptive URL flag.

Ubuntu Progress Continues Here

2006-11-19T21:44:00.000-05:00

As promised...this is where the Ubuntu thread continues from the original "Cobbon blog."

Ubuntu is now installed on the 1999 Compaq Presario 305 and the 2000 iMac G3. The trick with older machines that have less than 200 megabytes of RAM is to a. use a lot of patience, b. use the prompted alternate install method, which uses the files located here:

ftp.ussg.iu.edu/linux/ubuntu-releases/6.06.1/

What you want to download are the image files called "alternate" like: ubuntu-6.06.1-alternate-i386.iso

These don't boot a full graphical Ubuntu, but they will lead you through a text-based install that does remarkably well at hardware detection, including the graphics card, sound system, and network interface (a Buffalo WiFi card in the Compaq and the built-in Ethernet on the Mac). The patience is required for the lengthy wait between stages.

You will also need some patience once these installs complete as the default Ubuntu desktop is not the fastest. Next step with these older machines is to change the desktop.

Here Begins "Cobb on Tech"

2006-11-16T23:23:00.000-05:00

So, I decided I need a separate place to keep all my tech-related thoughts (to be honest, I didn't realize I was going to have so many).

Some of them will be migrating here from "Cobb On" and "scobb's non-blog."

If there is something specific in the hi-tech space that you would like me to comment on, let me know.