Ontario Technoblog

Technorati Test

2007-02-24T21:18:00.001-08:00

Technorati does not appear to be responding to pings for my new blog, mrontemp.blogspot.com.

Hiatus

2007-02-10T00:03:00.000-08:00

The Ontario Technoblog is shutting down, at least temporarily.

In fact I'm ceasing activity on all of my existing Blogger blogs, and redirecting people to mrontemp, my new Blogger blog.

One of the reasons for this is a chance to try some new technologies. Since I started my first blog (the Ontario Empoblog) in 2003, the free technologies have expanded to a point where I don't need to create a half-dozen blogs. Use of the Blogger labels allows my readers to see selected posts (e.g. technology posts) without having to wade through all the other posts (such as the politics posts).

I've done some other stuff behind the scenes, such as incorporating a new, slightly more restrained del.icio.us tagging methodology, and I'm also trying Google Analytics to see how it works compared to Blogpatrol.

Another thing that I'm trying to do is to optimize the blog pages for PDA viewing. I've chosen a template that loads well on small screens, but we'll have to see what happens when I build up some posts there.

We'll see how it goes. Catch you at mrontemp.

seclists.org from the lemmings and non-lemmings

2007-01-27T00:44:00.000-08:00

For any particular issue, you can pretty much predict how the Internet will respond.

Take this story from Wired:

Computer security guru Fyodor...reports waking up yesterday to find his website SecLists.org essentially removed from the web by his domain registrar, GoDaddy. After a bunch of phone calls to GoDaddy, he eventually got them to explain why: Because MySpace asked them too [sic].

This elicited a near-Pavlovian response in most quarters. Take this example:

GoDaddy chief Bob Parsons is a big supporter of free speech. He’s also a big supporter of privacy as a way to do this by promoting domain whois privacy services.

That’s why the internet world was shocked today to learn that GoDaddy suspended a domain name, seclists.org, based on the content on that site....

To make matters worse, GoDaddy general counsel Christine Jones responded by saying GoDaddy’s terms of service say the company “reserves the right to terminate your access to the services at any time, without notice, for any reason whatsoever”, according to the CNET article.

That attitude should make people think twice about registering domains with the company.

And some people are thinking:

Actions like these make me hesitant to recommend or use GoDaddy.com for any domain registration or hosting.

But other people are...well, they're thinking:

This raises questions on Internet free-speech and Internet governance, some might say. But in my opinion, it’s probably a good thing *IN THIS CASE*, as innumerable MySpace users were potentially at risk.

However, it is debatable whether there truly was a risk here:

The latest move, however, attempted to re-capture information that had already spread on the Internet for more than a week.

Meanwhile, as of this evening (it's still kinda sorta "evening" in the Pacific time zone), Bob Parsons is writing about other topics:

Our 2nd Super Bowl Ad Rejected by CBS – See it here! Why it was rejected. 5 times the channels on your TV! The switch to digital – it’s sooner than you think!

Isn't it ironic, don't you think?

The GoDaddy ToS forbids hosting what they call "morally objectionable activities".

Perhaps this whole thing is just another Bob Parsons Super Bowl - whoops, "big game" - publicity stunt. Actually, I'm joking - if Parsons truly wanted to get people's attention, he wouldn't do it in a way that would adversely impact on GoDaddy's customer relations.

The new Blogger

2007-01-27T00:33:00.000-08:00

I was going to write about the seclists.org fiasco, but I'll need to do that later. When I logged in to Blogger to write that post, I was pretty much urged to convert to the new Blogger.

I had delayed performing the conversion after reading this January 3 message:

While a majority of old blogspot blogs have migrated to the new Blogger, there are loads of bloggers still waiting for the Google invite that would allow them to shift from the old to the new version of Blogger.

Well, it turns out that Google has decided to postpone shifting of large blogs with thousands of posts to the new Blogger for some time.

Here's an official answer from the Blogger FAQ spotted by Improbulus and Impudent:

Why can't I switch to the new version of Blogger?

..if you have a very large blog (more than a couple thousand posts + comments), you'll need to hold off for a bit.

One of my blogs, the Ontario Empoblog, definitely falls into this category.

Anyway, I eventually got my invite, and got it again, and again. This is my first post using the new Blogger, so this is kind of a test case. I'll try the labels while I'm at it.

[Oops, I guess I needed some commas between those labels.]

Google circa 1960

2007-01-16T22:56:00.000-08:00

This has been making the rounds for a while, I guess. I heard about it from Randy Morin's del.icio.us tags. (And yes, I'm promoting online casino games below. But Steve Jobs can't get me for THAT.)

For more funny pictures, visit FunLOL.com!
Online Casino Games

iPhones from Ocean Telecom Services

2007-01-12T11:57:00.000-08:00

In the last few posts, I've talked about iPhones that didn't have anything to do with Steve Jobs (or, for that matter, Cisco). A search of the US Patent and Trademark database uncovers this trademark application:

Word Mark IPHONE
Goods and Services IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: handheld and mobile digital electronic devices for the sending and receiving of telephone calls, faxes, electronic mail, and other digital data; MP3 and other digital format audio players; handheld computers, personal digital assistants, electronic organizers, electronic notepads; magnetic data carriers; telephones, mobile phones, computer gaming machines, videophones, cameras; prerecorded computer programs for personal information management, database management software, electronic mail and messaging software, paging software, database synchronization software, computer programs for accessing, browsing and searching online databases, computer software and firmware, namely operating system programs, data synchronization programs, and application development tool programs for personal and handheld computers; electronic handheld units for the wireless receipt and/or transmission of data that enable the user to keep track of or manage personal information; software for the redirection of messages, Internet e-mail, and/or other data to one or more electronic handheld devices from a data store on or associated with a personal computer or a server; and software for the synchronization of data between a remote station or device and a fixed or remote station or device; computer hardware and software for providing integrated telephone communication with computerized global information networks
IC 028. US 022 023 038 050. G & S: hand-held unit for playing electronic games

Standard Characters Claimed
Mark Drawing Code (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Design Search Code
Serial Number 77007808
Filing Date September 26, 2006
Current Filing Basis 1B;44D
Original Filing Basis 1B;44D
Owner (APPLICANT) Ocean Telecom Services LLC LTD LIAB CO DELAWARE Corporation Trust Center, Room 123 1209 Orange Street Wilmington DELAWARE 19801
Attorney of Record James Johnston
Priority Date March 27, 2006
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator LIVE

More information here:

Current Status: Newly filed application, not yet assigned to an examining attorney.
Date of Status: 2006-10-04
Filing Date: 2006-09-26...

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Foreign Application Number: 37090
Country: Trinidad / Tobago
Foreign Filing Date: 2006-03-27...

ATTORNEY/CORRESPONDENT INFORMATION
Attorney of Record
James Johnston
Correspondent
JAMES JOHNSTON
OCEAN TELECOM SERVICES LLC
CORPORATION TRUST CENTER, ROOM 123
1209 ORANGE STREET
WILMINGTON, DE 19801

But if you perform a web search for Ocean Telecom Services, you can't find their website at all. What you can find, however, is a ton of speculation on who Ocean Telecom Services could be. This speculation is not necessarily germane to the Ontario Technoblog, so I'll just mention one little tidbit:

Apple went so far as to create a phony company -- called Ocean Telecom Services LLC -- to get around Cisco's trademark, Cisco alleges.

In an application to the U.S. Patent and Trade Office in March, Ocean Telecom billed itself as a foreign company doing business in Trinidad and Tobago. The company listed its attorney as James Johnson [sic; the patent application actually lists the last name as Johnston]. His contact information was an e-mail address from Google's free Web-based gmail service.

On Thursday, the Apple spokeswoman said the company would not discuss Ocean Telecom.

No one responded to an e-mail that The Associated Press sent to James Johns[t]on's e-mail account.

The daily news. Interesting, isn't it?

iphone Dialup from iPhone AS and iPhone UK Ltd.

2007-01-12T11:54:00.000-08:00

From iphone.no:

Call our access number from any telephone or operator
What do I need to get started?:
Any telephone will allow you to call our access number

Register your details
Log in and buy call credit
Call our access number 08450340880 or 020 80902800
Benefits
Free setup
Very low international call charges
No monthly charge
Works from any telephone or operator
Buy credit with your credit card or by SMS
Register the telephone you usually call from to save entering your PIN Code
Call history details on your web account
Ring directly from your phonebook without entering the access number

iPhones from Comwave

2007-01-12T11:52:00.000-08:00

From comwave.net:

Comwave iPhone™ is a telephone service that that is quite liberating and frees you from the "Phone Company". iPhone uses your High-Speed Internet connection as a phone line. With one internet connection you can enjoy as many phone lines as you like, and you can talk and surf the web at the same time.

How it works. You will recieve a device that looks like an internet modem. This is the iPhone. On the back of the iPhone (click here) are telephone outlets that you use to plug your telephone set just like a regular phone jack at home. You can plug in any type of telephone, even a fax or answering machine.

Each iPhone is capable of supporting 2 independant phone lines (one line for you and one for the kids) and you can attach as many telephone sets as you like.

iPhones from Teledex

2007-01-12T11:45:00.000-08:00

This is the first in a series on many different iPhones that have nothing to do with Steve Jobs (except for one possible exception).

From the Teledex web site:

What Makes iPhone Different?
Teledex iPhone IP and iPhone Hybrid phones have been designed from the ground up specifically for the unique needs of the hospitality market.

Unlike some other VoIP solutions that may be used in hotels, that are simply repurposed designs originally designed for other applications, both the hardware and software of iPhone has been designed with hotel applications in mind.

From the layout of the interface, to the color touch screen display, to simple-to-use content management tools, only iPhone is designed with the hotelier (and their guests) in mind....

The Teledex iPhone IP is designed for the specific needs of today’s hotel environment. Combining VoIP voice and rich, graphical content in one stunning new design that’s easy for guests to use, iPhone brings you new ways to generate new revenues and cut your operating costs.

[16 JANUARY 2007 - FOLLOWUP HERE (ONTARIO EMPOBLOG).]

The Ontario Technoblog Veers into Religious Commentary

2007-01-10T12:41:00.000-08:00

I don't really have anything to add to the iPhone discussion, other than the fact that I'm mulling over the shift in cellular telephone design from something modeled on the Trimline phone to something modeled on...I don't know, a brick or a calculator or something.

Michael Hanscom tagged the relevant Apple Computer - I mean Apple Inc. - page.

iPhone combines three products — a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching — into one small and lightweight handheld device. iPhone also introduces an entirely new user interface based on a large multi-touch display and pioneering new software, letting you control everything with just your fingers. So it ushers in an era of software power and sophistication never before seen in a mobile device, completely redefining what you can do on a mobile phone.

Randy Morin tagged this post, which reads in part:

Instead of a standard keypad, the iPhone uses a patented Apple technology called "multi-touch". It doesn't use a stylus, has "multi-finger gestures" and claims to ignore unintended touches. Jobs compared it to two other revolutionary Apple UIs - the mouse on the Macintosh and the click wheel on the iPod.

But Mitch Wagner at InformationWeek is scratching his head:

Reading up on the Apple iPhone, I'm not seeing what's so exciting about it, and I'm even tempted to say that the thing is going to sink like a lead balloon and everybody who's jazzing about it now is going to feel foolish in a year. It's a cell phone that's also an iPod that does the Internet and takes pictures. Why is that exciting?

Ah, but if things were selected based upon their technical merits, then Betamax would have won the religous war with VHS.

Speaking of religious wars, here's a sampling of the responses that Wagner has received:

You just don't get it. And write about technology?

Keep your Treo you wouldn't understand... an I phone is just too easy for you

You're not excited that all the different things (camera, phone, ipod) come in ONE small device now. I guess you're one of those who'll be more excited about news like Britney Spears walking aroudn (sic) without panties. Please quit writing such articles.

I didn't expect a Media 1.0 magazine like InformationWeek to understand the allure of the iPhone, and this article proved my point.

Sounds like you don't have Cingular and can't get out of your contract. Boo Hoo. Go home and watch your B&W 13 inch tv.

I bet you also "don't get it" about the Macintosh.

Wonder if Apple has hired iPhone evangelists...

[DISCLOSURE: One of the divisions of my employer manufactures a competitive product.]

LUnix

2006-12-05T07:43:00.000-08:00

One of my co-workers at Megacorp sent out an e-mail which included the following:

He comes to us from [company] in [location] where he was responsible for GUI development and product test in a Lunix environment.

My first thought? "My co-worker made a typo."

My second thought? "Wow, that's a nice shorthand word to describe someone who has worked on both Linux and Unix operating systems."

My third thought? "Oh, it really IS a typo." From sourceforge:

LNG is an [operating] system primarly for the good old Commodore64 home-computer. There also is a native version for the successor Commodore128. Ports to other 6502/6510 driven 8Bit Computers are possible but not yet started. LUnix started in 1993 and reached the internet in 1994. In 1997 LUnix0.1 was rewritten from scratch, the result is LNG.

But that's from this millennium. Here's something from the last millennium:

LUnix (little UNIX for C64)...

Updated Dec 7 1997

[LUnix] ... is an experimental operating system for the Commodore64/128 without additional hardware. (The Commodore64 was one of the first home computers. It had around 64kB RAM and a 8Bit CPU running at 1MHz. If you're looking for a operating system for your PC take a look at linux) The features of LUnix are: UNIX-like environment and command shell, multitasking, multisession. LUnix is free software!

Wikipedia provides an additional detail:

Unlike most Unix-like systems, LUnix is written in 6502 assembly language instead of C....

Delicious bundle anomaly

2006-12-01T12:38:00.000-08:00

I have become a heavy user of del.icio.us, and I wanted to note something that just happened to me before I forget about it.

By way of background, I have adopted the convention of entering multi-word tags with plus signs (e.g. "vatican+city"). In addition, I am using bundles to categorize my tags - examples of my bundles include people, religion, and politics+and+government.

While reading a Wikipedia article, I entered the tag "united+states" for the article. Subsequently, but before I had placed "united+states" in a bundle, I realized that I should have used another tag, "united+states+of+america," which I had employed previously (to distinguish item with this tag from "united+states+of+europe."

"No problem," I thought, "I'll just use the del.icio.us handy dandy renaming utility to rename my united+states tag to united+states+of+america.

After I did this, however, I discovered that several of my previously-bundled tags were now unbundled:

united+states+of+america

united+states+of+europe

fix+our+united+states

I figure that the unbundledness of the old "united+states" tag somehow overwrote the bundledness of any of my tags that included the string "united+states" in them. Odd behavior.

Despite this and some another anomalies, the bundle feature of del.icio.us seems to be working fairly well.

P.S. Yes, this is an exercise in self-referentialism - whoops, I mean self+referentialism. Heh.

Smartphone Sound (Motorola Q, Windows Media Player)

2006-11-11T20:59:00.000-08:00

I seem to be running into the PDA problem of the month every once in a while. Fortunately, this one had a happy ending - at least for me.

I got a Motorola Q phone a few weeks ago, and have in the whole been very happy with it. It syncs to my work email fairly well, plus it has the Bubble Breaker game - what more could you ask for?

Over the last few weeks, I've downloaded a small bit of music ("Non Sequitur 15" plus a few MIDIs) to my Q phone for my occasional enjoyment. I also used the Q features to record a video, with sound, for my additional enjoyment. (I have to write about the Q's video recording features, and compatibility issues, later.)

Well, today I wanted to listen to the sound from my MIDIs and my mp3, but no sound came out.

I tried playing the video that I made at work, but no sound came out from there, either.

Figuring that this might just be a Windows Media Player problem, I tried turning on the sound in Bubble Breaker. No sound there.

As a fourth test, I retested the alarm feature. Got sounds on the alarm, so it sounded more and more like some type of OS issue.

After a bunch of research, I finally found something that worked in the "Problem with Q Sound" thread at pdaphonehome.com. First, the original problem, as stated by Tizzle on July 23:

Problem with Q Sound

My Q was working perfecly up until the last few days. I can't for some reason get my Q to play any sounds (Player 10 or in the settings) except... when a call comes in, email all that works fine. But if i go to the settings and try to change the ring tone i can't preview the sounds it just will not play. NOW the funny part is if i hook up my bluetooth ear piece everything works just fine. I have searched and can't seam to find anything that could be doing this, Anyone have any ideas on how to fix this?

There were a myriad of suggestions, ranging from checking your profile settings to performing a hard reset, but the solution that worked for me came from Noah82:

When you are on the home screen, hold down the jog dial button until you see "Earpiece Volume". Then, you should be able to move the jog dial up and you will have sound again

I did this, and now I can again hear "Non Sequitur 15" in all its glory. (Take that, Paul Vincent Avila.)

(By the way, I'm full throttle on del.icio.us now. Related tags include cellular+telephone and windows+media+player.)

Windows Vista REALLY delayed

2006-11-03T16:00:00.000-08:00

The Register reports the following (credit Charlie Burgum for discovering this):

Microsoft's mythical operating system looks set to remain a thing of legend. The oft-delayed Windows Vista is facing an epic setback, having been pushed back 18,000 years.

According to Manchester-based IT supplier Aria.co.uk, don't expect to run Redmond's new beast on your PC until 30 January, 20007.

The site says:

"Don't hold out! Purchase Windows XP Professional edition after now and recieve a FREE* upgrade voucher for Microsoft's latest and long awaited Windows Vista Business Edition (release date January 30 20007)."

A screen shot from the aria.co.uk website, as well as speculation about the reasons for the multi-millennial delay, can be found here.

Oracle Database 11g Additional Blog Coverage

2006-10-25T12:17:00.000-07:00

Here's what others have written about Oracle Database 11g (or whatever the database after 10g will be called).

Tom Sanders:

The next 11g version of Oracle's flagship database applications will offer a total of 482 new features, the company's executive vice president of server technologies, Chuck Rozwat, said at the Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco.

In addition to increased speed and performance, the application will introduce features spanning areas including content management, high availability, business intelligence and compression technology. The latter could reduce an enterprise's storage need by up to 66 per cent, the company touted.

The software is currently in beta and Oracle didn't provide a projected launch date.

Justin Kestelyn:

Andy Mendelsohn offered some more details about Oracle Database 11g Beta:

If the key theme of 10g was "lowering the cost of ownership" (by 50% in fact), that of 11g is "lowering the cost (and risk) of change management" (or providing "change assurance", as Andy calls it), which by most reckoning is a major cost in IT. Hence Rozwat's focus on scalability, availability, and database operations in his keynote yesterday.

Key features include a new Data Guard infrastructure that supports "Flashback Standby" - the ability to create a standby snapshot for the purpose of regression testing and to keep it in sync with your production database; "Replay Workload" for capturing all (or just SQL) DB activity and then moving it to a testing environment (with no midtier tool required); rolling Online Application Upgrades - install app upgrades or patches online with no downtime!; hot patching; "Quick Fault Resolution" via the capture of all diagnostics related to a fault automatically; and a DB Repair Advisor, a wizard/expert system that guides DBAs through the fault diagnosis and resolution process.

Other features include more robust partitioning options to help manage VLDBs (such as partitioning by logical object and automated partition creation); a brand-new high-performance LOB infrastructure; native Java & PL/SQL compilers; and a re-engineered driver for PHP.

Mark Rittman:

The morning started off with the Chuck Rozwat keynote on Oracle's database technology, a run through of the new 10g products launched this year (Content Database, Records Database, BI Suite EE) and with a formal announcement of Oracle Database 11g, currently in beta and with a production release during the second half of 2007.

Rozwat mentioned some 482 new features in 11g, but with no specific details in this presentation....

[S]ome of the new features in 11g previewed in the [Andy Mendelsohn] session included:

A new data warehouse initiative called "Oracle Information Appliance", a package of hardware and software offered by third-parties...that aims to provide a turnkey, ready-to-run DW appliance based on commodity servers, RAC, ASM and 10g....

ILM Assistant, a Application Express utility downloadable from OTN that leverages partitioning, compression and 10g to help customers move less-used data onto lower cost storage.

New partitioning schemes coming with 11g, including more ways to combine range, list and hash partitioning, plus new schemes such as REF (creates partitioning scheme based on another table that has a FK relationship to the table being partitioned), Interval (automatic creation of time-based partitions), Virtual Column (partitioning based on a function - I wonder if "virtual columns" is a general feature coming with 11g?), and a new Partition Advisor.

Change Assurance capabilities, where new features in 11g will allow you to deploy a new database application, have the existing version run until such time as you're happy with the new release, and then have users switch over to the new one with no downtime. This idea was then extended to include online, live hot-patching of the Oracle database....

Automatic Diagnostic Repository, a feature that collects (like AWR) diagnostic data for later analysis and uploading to Oracle Support - aimed at making the SR process easier by [automating] the collection of diagnostic data. I wonder if this will be open to non-Oracle support use....

Oracle OpenWorld, October 24

2006-10-25T09:10:00.000-07:00

I don't really have much of technical value to add to my previous post, other than to note that the features of Oracle Database "11g" (or whatever it ends up being called) are now being publicly announced.

By 11:30 I was eating lunch in the middle of the street. Yes, one interesting wrinkle this year is that they have closed off Howard Street between Moscone North and South, and set up huge tents for lunch. This is good, because last year there weren't enough seats to go around at lunchtime, and I spent one lunch perched on a wall.

For more extensive coverage of Oracle OpenWorld, go to the collection of links to 2006 blog posts. (You may recall that they did something similar in 2005.)

P.S. My pillow from last year is still right behind me, providing over five nines of uptime.

P.P.S. I was re-reading my post last year about beanbag chairs, I saw a reference to last year's Sun keynote. What a difference a year makes....

P.P.P.S. At some point I'll post a bit about one of the technology tools that I employed for the first time at this conference.

Oracle OpenWorld, October 23

2006-10-24T09:07:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned previously, I probably won't be blogging a ton of profound observations from Oracle OpenWorld - primarily because I'm only here for 1 1/2 days. But I'll drop a few things here and there.

I was scheduled to arrive in San Francisco (from Ontario) before 11:00 Monday morning. However, it turned out that I was just *taking off* from Ontario at that time. We were held on the ground for more than an hour because of "air traffic" conditions (presumably fog) at SFO.

Finally got here a little after noon, BARTed in, and headed toward registration at Moscone West. Last week, I got an email from the folks at MegaCorp warning all of us MegaCorpians to get to registration really really early, because it could take an hour to register, bla bla bla. Turns out that I was registered within five minutes, which gave me time to check into my hotel. (Since I was running late, I didn't know if I'd have time to do this.)

Aside - I had stayed in this same hotel in 1999, when a co-worker and myself came to San Francisco for a training session. Because of a booking mixup, they did not have non-smoking rooms for us. We were finally able to obtain one non-smoking room, which I gave to my co-worker - I took one of the rooms that they spray to make wonderful, and it actually turned out OK.

On this trip, I am happy to say that I got a non-smoking room.

Back to Oracle OpenWorld. I spent the late afternoon in several meetings that I'm not going to tell YOU about, and then attended an evening "thank you" event. I figured that this would just be a small wingding with 20-30 people or so - I was wrong. We took over the entire Gordon Biersch on the Embarcadero for the evening. I ended up sitting with a couple of other customers, and we had a good time and enjoyed good food. (Oracle is profitable, and it shows.)

The task of the Oracle folks at this event was to make sure that the customers got face time with the bigwigs at the event, and the other customers and I spent some time talking to Jeff Henley, Chairman and former CFO of Oracle. (For the record, Larry Ellison is Oracle's CEO.) I'm more knowledgeable on the technology end of the business than the other portions, so I wasn't really involved with the conversation, which focused on Oracle's recent acquisitions over the last few years. I enjoyed his insights, however. And it wasn't all business - we also talked about the Grateful Dead (this is California, after all), the Stones, and various other musical topics.

Speaking of music, I will not be attending the Cow Palace event tonight with Elton John, Joan Jett, Devo, et al. By the time Devo dons their energy domes (I still call them flowerpots), I should be on the way to Ontario - unless, of course, my flight is delayed again. I'll attend one session this morning, then more meetings, and possibly other stuff. If you're at Oracle OpenWorld, I hope that things are going well for you.

Oracle OpenWorld 2006

2006-10-20T11:48:00.000-07:00

I probably won't be blogging much from Oracle OpenWorld 2006. I'll only be attending for 1 1/2 days, and will be participating in so many meetings that I really won't have time to attend many sessions.

You may want to check out the following blogs for Oracle OpenWorld 2006 information.

http://awads.net/wp/

http://www.bloggingaboutoracle.org/

http://blogs.oracle.com/xmlpublisher/

http://clemensblog.blogspot.com/

http://dgielis.blogspot.com/

http://laurentschneider.blogspot.com/

http://radiofreetooting.blogspot.com/

http://roelhartman.blogspot.com/

http://talk2gerd.blogspot.com/

Technology Access

2006-10-16T12:20:00.000-07:00

From Gallaudet University's Technology Access Program:

The recent disasters caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita along the Gulf Coast have highlighted the importance of access to emergency communications by people with disabilities.

On November 2-3, 2005 the RERC on Telecommunications Access sponsored a state of the science conference on the accessibility of emergency communications to people with disabilities. This timely conference brought together experts in accessibility, mass media, emergency communications, telecommunications, Internet, and government policy to analyze barriers and technological solutions for effective emergency communications with and for people with disabilities.

Attendees included representatives from federal, state, and local government; industry representatives; consumer representatives; and accessibility experts.

Provost Jane K. Fernandes made the following opening remarks:

We face situations as other people have faced them in the United States but the challenge is greater at Gallaudet because our community includes people who are deaf, hard of hearing and deaf-blind. It is our responsibility to communicate quickly and effectively with them during emergencies.

For example, during 9/11, it was a shock here to those of us on Gallaudet's campus as it was throughout the D.C. area. We had the added responsibility to communicate clearly with students, faculty, and staff about how we were handling the situation and what our response was to that emergency. After 9/11 came the anthrax scare, followed by the sniper attacks in the D.C. area; the Crisis Management Team worked throughout those various crises.

The biggest crisis that some of you do remember was approximately five years ago when two students were murdered here on campus. Six to eight months went by during which we did not know who the perpetrator of those crimes was. The Crisis Management Team had to deal with ongoing fear and assumptions of who might have committed the crimes. We could not call a cancellation of the emergency. We were in a state of emergency that lasted six to eight months until the perpetrator was arrested.

The students were scared. The faculty and staff were scared. Parents were scared. Our response was to use every possible avenue of communication to keep everyone informed. We understand that communication is the key. Even if we don't know everything that’s going on, we communicate as much as know. We communicate the facts about the situation. We want to be clear what we expect people to do, how we can assist them, and how they can assist us through the emergency.

During 9/11, the anthrax scare, the sniper period, and a host of other things that were happening, there were some deaf people who worked in different federal government agencies and who contacted me here and asked if Gallaudet would allow them to come on campus during an emergency, during a crisis. They didn't want to stay within their own government agencies. We were shocked that these workers wanted to come to Gallaudet. We thought that it might be dangerous for them to leave their offices and travel to Gallaudet. We tried to explain that to them but they wanted to come here to Gallaudet University because there would be communication. A lone deaf person in a government agency, or a deaf-blind person, or a hard-of-hearing person would likely receive little or no information and what was actually happening around them would be left to their own imagination. Thus they would prefer to come here to Gallaudet University where communication would happen. Communication is critical for people who are deaf and it probably just as critical for all people. It is key, especially during an emergency.

57,000 Channels and Nothing On

2006-10-09T12:46:00.000-07:00

Things have changed during my 44+ year lifespan. And Anne Sweeney is trumpeting this fact:

TV viewers are now in the driving seat in today's new digital media world, which promises to bring more varied entertainment to fans around the world in whatever way they want to consume it.

That was the powerful message by Anne Sweeney, one of the entertainment industry's most powerful and influential executives, to thousands of TV and digital media execuatives who have flocked here for the annual MIPCOM audiovisual show.

"Nobody can predict the future of the digital business because the viewers will drive that," Sweeney, who co-chairs Disney Media Networks and heads up the giant Disney-ABC Television Group, told a packed conference hall at the opening day of the five-day event.

"Viewers now have the upper hand and show no sign of giving it back," she added after outlining the group's strategy. This includes wheeling out a slew of new platforms ranging across mobile phones, to online and new broad-band players for viewers worldwide to view their favourite telly shows where, when and how they want.

And, despite the pretensions of myself and others to provide content (my content consisting of some pigs filmed at the L.A. County Fair), there are still people running around providing...um...quality entertainment.

With the world TV market booming and the digital entertainment revolution starting to reach consumers, this year's five-day MIPCOM show looks set to be particularly busy.

Almost 12,300 top TV, film, and digital content executives from 91 countries are due to jet into Cannes.

All the major telecom companies are also due in town. And they will be joined by all the heavyweight Hollywood studios, keen to supplement box office revenues on a plethora of new platforms.

Buyers will be out in force -- a good sign for TV fans. A total of 3,818, or 11 percent more than at the same time last year, have already signed up to attend and the final number could be higher than that.

But if the content providers can't provide, I have "Why I'm Glad I'm Male" waiting in the wings.

Get this video and more at MySpace.com

ESB Benefits and Disadvantages

2006-10-01T15:31:00.000-07:00

The Wikipedia writers have assembled a list of the key benefits and disadvantages of enterprise service bus implementations. This is what they said. This is what the Wikipedia writers said. [citation provided]

Key benefits

Faster and cheaper accommodation of existing systems.

Increased flexibility; easier to change as requirements change.

Standards-based.

Scales from point solutions to enterprise-wide deployment (distributed bus).

More configuration rather than integration coding.

No central rules engine, no central broker.

Incremental changes can be applied with zero down-time; enterprise becomes "refactorable".

Key disadvantages

EMM is usually mandatory.

Value of the ESB requires many disparate systems to collaborate on message standards.

Without forward planning, the versioning of messages between systems can cause tight coupling instead of the intended loose coupling.

Vendor depending, it requires more hardware to run.

New skills needed to configure ESB.

Extra translation layer when compared to regular messaging solutions.

Rarely realizes ROI (Return On Investment) witin first few projects; next few projects generally refine messages and services; the fifth project may begin to realize ROI.[citation needed]

For effective implementation, requires a mature IT governance model (such as ITIL) and a well-defined enterprise strategy to be in place already.

Chip Wars at the Computer Manufacturer Level? Something is fishy

2006-09-27T07:30:00.000-07:00

IBM has released a white paper that extols the virtues of the IBM Power architecture over the Itanium architecture. Author: Clabby Analytics.

Meanwhile, a separate report indicates that there are strengths in each of the competing 64-bit architectures. Regarding Itanium, the report says:

Intel's Itanium is well positioned because it can run Windows .NET and Unix/Linux J2EE environments -- and it has solid parallelization and multi- core plans...

Author of THIS report? Clabby Analytics. Does your head spin around?

Regular readers will remember Clabby Analytics and its chief prognosticator Joe Clabby. It was he who was touched by St. Fister in 2004 and cured of all Itanic wickedness. Itanium's apparent 2004 sales ramp and ISV embrace had turned Clabby into an EPIC believer.

Well, Clabby believes no more.

Where IDC championed the recent $10bn fund raising effort by the Itanium Solutions Alliance (ISA), Clabby, in a fresh report, has questioned how effective such an investment will be. He also urged readers to consider what Dell and IBM's abandonment of Itanium means to the chip's future, how ever improving x86 64-bit chips will challenge sales and how the RISC advancements made by IBM and Sun Microsystems will affect Intel's 64-bit dynamo.

Detractors will say that Clabby received funds from IBM for his initial anti-Itanium report and then got more funds from HP for his 2004 pro-Itanium report and is now back in IBM's pocket again with the new diatribe against Itanic. Frankly, we don't care.

For the latest version, be sure to visit Clabby Analytics. Clabby is the one in the middle.

Like a virgin, burned for the very first time

2006-09-19T14:33:00.000-07:00

Courtesy InfoWorld:

Taking strict airline "No Smoking" policies to new heights, Virgin Airlines has joined Qantas and Korean Air in restricting usage of many Apple and Dell laptops on flights.

Specifically, owners of Apple and Dell systems can't run them on battery power while flying, because the airline fears they pose a potential fire hazard....

Passengers can still bring their Dell and Apple laptops on board; they just can't run them with battery power. That means only customers sitting in Premier Economy or Upper Class seats, who have access to in-seat power supplies, will be able to use their systems....

The restriction is indefinite. "Virgin is in communication with Apple and Dell. As soon as this safety issue is resolved these restrictions will be lifted," according to the site.

Let's look at something I said on June 29:

I'm wondering how the airlines would react. On the one hand, many of their customers would be pushing them to keep these "time bombs" off of planes. On the other hand, their frequent customers would demand that they be allowed to continue carrying them. Perhaps the vacation airlines will panic and ban them.

When I wrote that, I didn't account for the fact that (some) business customers would be able to use their laptops without having to use battery power. Unfortunately, my usual business flights don't qualify for business class...

You think your software is old...

2006-09-18T13:08:00.000-07:00

John Soat at InformationWeek was asking businesses about the oldest operating system(s) in their establishment. The winner:

"I am running DOS 3.2 on a NetWare file-and-print server. It's been running for 13 years--no Y2K patches, no hiccups, no beeps or bumps or blue screens of death in the middle of the night ... just keeps running."

And Soat found plenty of Windows 95, Windows 98, etc. systems out there. The explanations? Vertical applications, and no funding for revisions:

[M]ost responses referred to simply one or two systems, most running in small businesses or in niche areas of big businesses, like this: "We still have two computers running Windows 95 and one running Windows 3.1 for some old, specialty programs that we occasionally have to use."...

"We have government equipment that runs [specialized] software," wrote one respondent, "with no funding to upgrade the specialized software so it will work on a newer OS. There are several systems running each of these versions: DOS, WFW 3.1, Win 95, Win 98, Win 98se, Win NT, Win 2000, Win XP, Server 2003."

Another explanation, which we saw with the DOS 3.2 app - if it ain't broke, don't fix it:

Representative of several responses was: "A touch screen point-of-sale system that runs under DOS 6.22." Another respondent said: "Still do my billing with DOS 6.22 on an Epson Equity II. Works just fine."

Surprisingly--or perhaps not--MS-DOS still has a devoted following. "Data recovery work is done at my little shop using DOS. Plain old DOS 6.0 works best for the way the app is programmed. And no, it can't work in a Windows DOS box, either."

Boten Anna with English Subtitles - what is truth?

2006-09-18T00:24:00.000-07:00

Found an English subtitled-version of the song "Boten Anna" by Basshunter. The song poses a new twist on the differences between an online persona and a real persona.

More here. Also see here.

Dad is mad. Very very mad. He had a bad day. What a day Dad had!

2006-09-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

I never thought I'd be quoting from DadTalk in the TechnoBlog, but this just illustrates how bad news travels fast (and how I'm helping it, I guess).

In a post entitled Why Dell Rhymes With Hell, Dad enumerated three (count 'em) problems that he's had with Dell in the last few months.

First, he ordered a laptop from Dell and was billed for three laptops and an incompatible expansion tray. Plus a restocking fee for the expansion tray he didn't order.

Second, he ran into some problems at his former job with the quality of Dell motherboards and capacitors - problems which Dell refused to acknowledge for a long time.

Third, he ordered a PDA for his wife (Inland Empress), never received it, and THEN found out that the PDA was out of stock.

His conclusion:

Of course, the reason we all buy from Dell is the price. It is pretty darn good. But three major problems with these guys is enough. So from here on out, I’m saying this: To hell with Dell.

A few months ago, I attended a Hewlett Packard event in which the speakers were hoping to catch up to Dell. Granted that HP has had its own problems, but even their negative news can be spun as positive:

Hurd, who has been CEO since April 2005, will become chairman on Jan. 18, HP said Tuesday. Current board Chairman Patricia Dunn will resign that post then, although she will remain a director.

George Keyworth II, a 20-year veteran of HP's board, also resigned Tuesday. Board member Richard Hackborn has been promoted to lead independent director.

The shuffle stems from a controversy over how HP tried to stop boardroom leaks to the press. The computer giant used sneaky — and possibly illegal — methods to obtain the home phone records of nine reporters and at least two board members.

The fallout threatened to rip apart the board. It plunged HP, a pillar of Silicon Valley, into scandal in less than a week. And it threatened to derail Hurd's attempt to turn around the computer giant.

But Hurd managed to simultaneously handle the crisis, get a promotion and lay the groundwork for bringing in new board members friendly to his style of governance. He "made the best of a bad situation," says Charles Elson, governance professor at the University of Delaware.

1 - 2 - 86 - what are we fighting for? Or, when China becomes too expensive

2006-09-11T17:21:00.000-07:00

The OS war is being fought at the government level, in the state of Massachusetts, in various German cities, and now in Vietnam:

The Vietnamese Communist Party's decision to move its computer systems to open-source software got a boost on Friday from Intel, the world's largest chip maker.

Under terms of a memorandum of understanding signed on Friday, Intel will help the Communist Party's Central Committee for Science and Education (CCSE) set up a laboratory, called OpenLab, for testing and developing open-source software. Over the next three years, the lab will oversee the installation of open-source software on 27,000 PCs running Intel processors, the chip maker said....

Intel is investing heavily in Vietnam, which has emerged as a low-cost alternative to manufacturing in China. In February, Intel announced plans to build a $300 million test and assembly plant in Ho Chi Minh City. When completed, the Ho Chi Minh City site will be Intel's seventh test and assembly plant, joining the ranks of similar facilities in China, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Costa Rica.

The Religious Wars of the Reply To Field

2006-09-11T12:15:00.000-07:00

My contribution to the blogosphere is in the form of an anecdote.

I work for MegaCorp, a large company with thousands of e-mail users. One day, a few of these users decided to solicit participation in a volunteer effort within MegaCorp. So they created a mailing list, which I'll call mailinglist@megacorp.com. Out went the following message, early in the morning:

From: Volunteer Team [mailto: mailinglist@megacorp.com]
To: Volunteer Opportunity Candidates [mailto: mailinglist@megacorp.com]
Subject: Join Our Volunteer Opportunity Today!

Hey you!

Join our Volunteer Opportunity, and you can enter a drawing to win a free MegaCorp WidgetPlus!

Wowee Neato!

Now, I happen to have changed some of the facts above. Obviously I've obscured the company name, the actual name of the mailing list, and the nature of the volunteer opportunity. I've also changed one other fact - the actual message wasn't a text message, but a formatted image message in excess of 200KB.

Some of you have already guessed how this story's gonna play out.

A couple of hours later, someone sent a message which, by the time I received it, looked like this:

From: Volunteer Team [mailto: mailinglist@megacorp.com]
To: Volunteer Opportunity Candidates [mailto: mailinglist@megacorp.com]
Subject: RE: Join Our Volunteer Opportunity Today!

MESSAGE FROM John Doe (jdoe@megacorp.com)

Please remove me from this list.

-------

From: Volunteer Team [mailto: mailinglist@megacorp.com]
To: Volunteer Opportunity Candidates [mailto: mailinglist@megacorp.com]
Subject: Join Our Volunteer Opportunity Today!

Hey you!

Join our Volunteer Opportunity, and you can enter a drawing to win a free MegaCorp WidgetPlus!

Wowee Neato!

A few minutes later, I received the following message:

From: Volunteer Team [mailto: mailinglist@megacorp.com]
To: Volunteer Opportunity Candidates [mailto: mailinglist@megacorp.com]
Subject: RE: Join Our Volunteer Opportunity Today!

MESSAGE FROM Jane Smith (jsmith@megacorp.com)

Get me off this list too.

-------

From: Volunteer Team [mailto: mailinglist@megacorp.com]
To: Volunteer Opportunity Candidates [mailto: mailinglist@megacorp.com]
Subject: RE: Join Our Volunteer Opportunity Today!

MESSAGE FROM John Doe (jdoe@megacorp.com)

Please remove me from this list.

-------

From: Volunteer Team [mailto: mailinglist@megacorp.com]
To: Volunteer Opportunity Candidates [mailto: mailinglist@megacorp.com]
Subject: Join Our Volunteer Opportunity Today!

Hey you!

Join our Volunteer Opportunity, and you can enter a drawing to win a free MegaCorp WidgetPlus!

Wowee Neato!

And so on and so forth.

After about 15 minutes of this, the messages started to change.

From: Volunteer Team [mailto: mailinglist@megacorp.com]
To: Volunteer Opportunity Candidates [mailto: mailinglist@megacorp.com]
Subject: RE: Join Our Volunteer Opportunity Today!

MESSAGE FROM Manny Hothead(mhothead@megacorp.com)

Hey you stupid people! Stop hitting Reply To All!

Unfortunately, Manny didn't realize that with the From and To address setup, there was no way to respond to the list administrators.

Meanwhile, our local IT person (whom I am praising profusely, should he ever find this message - can I have a new laptop now?) took a smarter tack:

From: Local IT Guy[mailto: localitguy@megacorp.com]
To: Californians [mailto: californialist@megacorp.com]
Subject: DO NOT RESPOND TO THE Join Our Volunteer Opportunity Today MESSAGE

Do not respond to the Volunteer Opportunity message. All responses go back to the entire mailing list.

Not that the local IT guy's message solved anything:

From: Volunteer Team [mailto: mailinglist@megacorp.com]
To: Volunteer Opportunity Candidates [mailto: mailinglist@megacorp.com]
Subject: RE: Join Our Volunteer Opportunity Today!

MESSAGE FROM Diego Surferdude (dsurferdude@megacorp.com)

This is WAY uncool. Like, get me off this list, y'know?

So, since email was not a viable option at the moment (I was getting 1 MB of email every couple of minutes), I started researching the whole issue of the proper use of the Reply To field in email. The first salvo was fired by Chip Rosenthal:

"Reply-To" Munging Considered Harmful
An Earnest Plea to Mailing List Administrators

---

An email message requires some amount of processing when it is redistributed to a mailing list. At the very least, the envelope must be rewritten to redirect bounces directly to the list administrator. While the message is being processed, the list administrator might take advantage of the opportunity to munge some of the message headers.

Some forms of header munging are helpful, such as special loop-detection headers. Others are questionable. Most are ill-advised or dangerous. Many list adminstrators want to add a Reply-To header that points back to the list. This transformation also is one of the most ill-advised.

Some administrators claim that Reply-To munging makes it easier for users to respond to the entire list, and helps encourage list traffic. These benefits are fallacious. Moreover, Reply-To can have harmful -- even dangerous -- effects. If you think Reply-To munging is a good idea, I hope I can change your mind.

After laying out his case, Rosenthal summarized as follows:

Many people want to munge Reply-To headers. They believe it makes reply-to-list easier, and it encourages more list traffic. It really does neither, and is a very poor idea. Reply-To munging suffers from the following problems:

It violates the principle of minimal munging.
It provides no benefit to the user of a reasonable mailer.
It limits a subscriber's freedom to choose how he or she will direct a response.
It actually reduces functionality for the user of a reasonable mailer.
It removes important information, which can make it impossible to get back to the message sender.
It penalizes the person with a reasonable mailer in order to coddle those running brain-dead software.
It violates the principle of least work because complicates the procedure for replying to messages.
It violates the principle of least surprise because it changes the way a mailer works.
It violates the principle of least damage, and it encourages a failure mode that can be extremely embarrassing -- or worse.
Your subscribers don't want you to do it. Or, at least the ones who have bothered to read the docs for their mailer don't want you to do it.

But there is an opposing view. Enter Simon Hill:

Reply-To Munging Considered Useful
An Earnest Plea to Mailing List Administrators
Last revised: 3 January 2000

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An email message requires some amount of processing when it is redistributed to a mailing list. At the very least, the envelope must be rewritten to redirect bounces directly to the list administrator.

While the message is being processed, the list administrator might take advantage of the opportunity to munge some of the message headers. Many list administrators want to add a Reply-To header that points back to the list. This transformation is also one of the most useful.

Some administrators claim that Reply-To munging can have harmful -- even dangerous -- effects. I assert the opposite, that not adding a Reply-To header has even more harmful effects. If you think Reply-To munging is a bad idea, I hope I can change your mind.

Again, let's skip to the end:

Summary
Many people want to munge Reply-To headers. They believe it makes reply-to-list easier, and it encourages more list traffic. It really does both of these things, and is a very good idea. To reiterate:

It adheres to the principle of minimal bandwidth.
It provides additional functionality to the user.
It increases a subscriber's freedom to choose how to direct a response.
It does not reduce functionality for the user of a reasonable mailer.
It aids and assists the user with a deficient mailer.
It adheres to the principle of least total work.
It helps to ensure that questions are answered on the list.
Your subscribers want you to do it.

After this morning's experience, I lean toward Rosenthal's opinion. So does neale:

"Reply-To" Munging Still Considered Harmful. Really.

An Earnest Plea to People Still Having This Debate

A long time ago, Chip Rosenthal wrote a fine document entitled ‘Reply-To’ Munging Considered Harmful. It details the problems caused by Reply-To munging. Chip’s essay basically points out that:

Munging only helps people with broken mail clients.
Munging can catch people by surprise, since in every other email they’ve gotten with multiple recipients, when they hit “reply” it goes only to the sender.
Munging totally breaks things for people who want replies to go to a different address than the one they sent the mail from.
In 2000 (or maybe earlier), Simon Hill wrote a response called Reply-To Munging Considered Useful, which is frequently offered as a rebuttal to Chip’s document in online debates. Simon’s response boils down to the following:

Munging encourages list discussion.
RFC 822 seems to indicate it’s okay.
Munging makes things easier on broken mail clients.
People still using these two documents to debate the issue are wasting everybody’s time. The issue was definitively settled in 2001, and Chip won....

Both Chip’s and Simon’s documents refer to RFC 822, “Standard For The Format Of ARPA Internet Text Messages”, issued way back in 1982, before most of us even knew what a computer network was. Indeed, RFC 822 doesn’t say anything about whether or not mailing lists can or should set the Reply-To header. Chip interpreted it one way, and Simon another.

In April of 2001, the IETF issued af new document, RFC 2822, which obsoletes RFC 822. In this new RFC, the author addresses the Reply-To header in a few places, but the most relevant to this discussion is the following in section 3.6.2 “Originator fields”:

When the “Reply-To:” field is present, it indicates the mailbox(es) to which the author of the message suggests that replies be sent.

Your list software is not “the author of the message”, so it must not set or in any way meddle with the Reply-To header. That header exists for the author and the author alone. If your list munges it, you are violating the standard....

This debate doesn't directly connect to the issue MegaCorp had, but it does illustrate the importance of a Reply To field.

Or, at the very least, mailing list opt in capability. Meanwhile, the list replies go on...

From: Volunteer Team [mailto: mailinglist@megacorp.com]
To: Volunteer Opportunity Candidates [mailto: mailinglist@megacorp.com]
Subject: RE: Join Our Volunteer Opportunity Today!

MESSAGE FROM J. Wentworth Mega III (chairmansson@megacorp.com)

I wouldn't get involved in this stupid volunteer opportunity, even if you paid me to do it.

Technology and Theology

2006-09-07T22:24:00.000-07:00

Technology pops up in the most interesting contexts. Below I have reproduced an excerpt from a document issued by the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod entitled "Public Rebuke of Public Sin: Considerations in Light of the Large Catechism Explanation of the Eighth Commandment." However, modern technology (as well as modern societal practices) results in the following question: what exactly is public today, and what is private?

In his commentary on the Eighth Commandment in the Large Catechism Luther spoke within the context of a relatively small community where people lived in close proximity to each other and routinely knew each other’s business. And in most cases, the community was identical to the local congregation....

The situation of the twenty-first century is very different. People in western societies in our day jealously guard their private lives. Much less of life is public now than it was in the sixteenth century, and most often members of a community know very little about each other. Therefore, any rebuke for sin, public or private, tends to be seen as an invasion of a person’s privacy. Even in LCMS congregations, we may hear that sin is a matter between God and the sinner only. Accordingly, the idea that an individual’s sin affects others in the community seems to have become increasingly foreign to many. The general failure to consider rebuke for any specific sin has led to the near obliteration of the distinction between public and private sin. In fact, we rarely need to consider this distinction because we seldom rebuke sin either publicly or privately. The end result is that most personal conduct tends to be regarded today as somehow private, a matter of concern only to the individual and to be judged only by God and his or her own conscience. The paradox of modernity is that the realm of the private has encroached even upon what is clearly public.

Modern communications media have also compounded the problem of what is public. Although we have enlarged the circle of what is considered private, we also have the ability instantly to make public whatever we wish through print, and especially through electronic media. E-mail lists, Internet chat rooms, and Web sites create possibilities for spreading reports that could not have been fathomed by Luther....

No deliberation at the local level is needed, when anyone can send an e-mail or post a rebuke on their Web site in response to a real or perceived sin. This situation creates some profound difficulties—not the least of which is that there is nothing in Scripture or the Confessions that justifies a public rebuke made unilaterally in the absence of conversation with others who are aware of the public sin (cf. Acts 18:24–26)....

Not only is it possible, but it is likely that a public rebuke will receive a wider audience than the public sin that elicited it. In other words, the rebuke has the side effect of publicizing the sin more widely, of making it known to an audience that had no prior knowledge of it. We must recognize that the number of people directly affected by a public sin might be limited. Although all members of the Synod are accountable to each other, in most cases it will only be necessary to deal with public sin at the local level. Publicity beyond that level may serve to scandalize more than to instruct. This observation should lead to a careful consideration of the audience for a public rebuke. It is neither necessary nor beneficial to involve all members of the Synod in every case of public sin. Those who would undertake a rebuke should take great care, therefore, in choosing their medium of communication and in determining their audience.

You'd think that a Bill Gates application would be able to handle large numbers

2006-08-17T12:15:00.000-07:00

Some people can wiggle their ears. I can recite powers of 2 up to about 8,192 or so. I can't necessarily tell you that 4,096 is 2 to the twelfth power, but I can multiply the numbers. (I used to be able to go up to 65,536, but I can't do that any more. Age, I guess.)

As a result of a drunken bet with Catherine Zeta-Jones on the deck of the Edmund Fitzgerald -

Strike that. It's not true, but it sounds better that way.

As a result of an inane conversation with co-workers, I was going to multiply powers of two all the way up to two to the 8,192nd power. Using Microsoft Excel, I got all the way to two to the 49th power:

2
4
8
16
32
64
128
256
512
1,024
2,048
4,096
8,192
16,384
32,768
65,536
131,072
262,144
524,288
1,048,576
2,097,152
4,194,304
8,388,608
16,777,216
33,554,432
67,108,864
134,217,728
268,435,456
536,870,912
1,073,741,824
2,147,483,648
4,294,967,296
8,589,934,592
17,179,869,184
34,359,738,368
68,719,476,736
137,438,953,472
274,877,906,944
549,755,813,888
1,099,511,627,776
2,199,023,255,552
4,398,046,511,104
8,796,093,022,208
17,592,186,044,416
35,184,372,088,832
70,368,744,177,664
140,737,488,355,328
281,474,976,710,656
562,949,953,421,312

But then I looked at the number for two to the 50th power:

1,125,899,906,842,620

As Devo would say, It's Not Right. But Excel was not meant to be a high-powered scientific calculator:

Numeric Precision
Microsoft Excel [was] developed to compete in the business software market where precision is probably not important for simple calculations. However many of the real-world calculations used in computational science require many digits of precision to the right of the decimal point.

Excel's maintains an internal numeric precision of 15 digits. By comparison a typical scientific calculator displays 10 digits but probably stores 12 digits while a CRAY 1 supercomputer has 15 digits in single-precision, floating point number. Excel stores 15 digits internally, but rounds the value for the screen display according to the format of the cell.

Numeric Range

Numeric range determines the sensitivity of the spreadsheet to overflow and underflow errors. Excel stores numbers between -1.798 x10 +308 and 1.798 x 10+308 for a numeric range of ±10+308. A scientific calculator handles a range of 10±99 and the CRAY 1 has a range of 10±2500. Although the largest number that Excel can store is 1.798 x 10+308, the largest number that you can type is 9.999 x 10+307. If you type in a larger number, Excel will treat it as a character string.

Most computational science calculations have reasonable results somewhere in the range of 10-40 to 10+40. When these numbers are used in an equation, the intermediate results are often quite large. If the intermediate results exceed the range of the computer then an overflow condition will return an error.

Returning to the title of this post, the precision in Excel is good enough for Bill and Melinda to maintain their household budget. I don't think they'll become quadrillionaires any time soon.

Google Acquires More Than It Can Handle?

2006-08-16T08:50:00.000-07:00

Here's how Google announced their acquisition of Neven Vision:

It's not always easy to search through your personal photos, and it's certainly a lot harder than searching the web. Unless you take the time to label and organize all your pictures (and I'll freely admit that I don't), chances are it can be pretty hard to find that photo you just know is hidden somewhere deep inside your computer.

We've been working to make Picasa (Google's free photo-organizing software) even better when it comes to searching for your own photos—to make finding them be as easy as finding stuff on the web. Luckily we've found some people who share this goal, and are excited that the Neven Vision team is now part of Google.

Neven Vision comes to Google with deep technology and expertise around automatically extracting information from a photo. It could be as simple as detecting whether or not a photo contains a person, or, one day, as complex as recognizing people, places, and objects. This technology just may make it a lot easier for you to organize and find the photos you care about. We don't have any specific features to show off today, but we're looking forward to having more to share with you soon.

Liz Gannes provides, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story (emphasis mine):

Google announced today on its blog it had acquired Neven Vision, a photo recognition firm whose background is in biometrics, for an undisclosed sum....The company has a strong mobile bent that Google neglects to mention in its post.

Santa Monica-based Neven Vision was founded...in 2003 by a group of people who had worked together on a biometrics company, but in the last few years changed...their focus to applying that technology to mobile visual search. Customers include NTT DoCoMo (for authenticating transactions), the U.S. government (including the LAPD for identifying gang members), and Coca-Cola (for mobile marketing campaigns).

So if you want to find out about all of Neven Vision's businesses, just go here:

Thank you for your interest. Neven Vision was recently acquired by Google Inc. and Neven Vision product information is no longer available on this site.

Dell laptop battery recall

2006-08-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

Our planes are safer now, according to this story:

Dell Inc. said Monday it will recall 4.1 million notebook computer batteries because they can overheat and catch fire. Dell negotiated conditions of the recall with the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission, which called it the largest electronics-related recall ever conducted by the agency.

A Dell spokesman said the batteries were made by Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news). and placed in notebooks that were shipped between April 1, 2004, and July 18 of this year.

"In rare cases, a short-circuit could cause the battery to overheat, causing a risk of smoke and/or fire," said the spokesman, Ira Williams. "It happens in rare cases, but we opted to take this broad action immediately."

The battery packs were included in some models of Dell's Latitude, Inspiron, XTS and precision mobile workstation notebooks. Dell planned to launch a Web site overnight that would describe the affected models. Williams said the Web site would tell how consumers to get free replacement batteries from Dell.

There have been numerous recent news reports about Dell laptops bursting into flames, and pictures of some of the charred machines have circulated on the Internet.

Dell, the world's largest maker of personal computers, confirmed that two weeks ago, one of its laptops caught fire in Illinois, and the owner dunked it in water to douse the flames. Other reports have surfaced from as far away as Japan and Singapore.

The proximity between the laptop carry-on ban and this action is, of course, mere coincidence.

Carmi Levy was the first to discuss exploding laptops on planes, by the way. See here and here (latter link still works as of August 14, 2006).

Press Release Source: Info-Tech Research Group

Exploding Laptops Pose Potential Hazard for Air Travel and Personal Safety says Info-Tech Research Group
Wednesday June 28, 3:46 pm ET
Personal Computing Industry must Address the Issues

LONDON, ON, June 28 /PRNewswire/ - Incidents of computer batteries erupting in smoke, fire and even explosions have caused numerous laptop recalls within the last year and pose a threat to personal safety by users especially during air travel, Info-Tech Research Group stated today.

"The most recent event we're aware of involved a Dell laptop exploding and bursting into flames at a business meeting in Osaka, Japan," said Info-Tech's Senior Analyst Carmi Levy. "The potential for an in-flight incident of this nature when travelers are using battery power for portable PCs certainly exists. Everyone worries about covert explosives being taken on board planes, but what about the average laptop that could be just as dangerous?"

Recalls related to computer batteries overheating have been issued by at least three computer equipment manufacturers within the last year. Hewlett-Packard (HP) announced a recall of some 15,700 HP and Compaq notebook computer batteries in April this year after 20 reports of batteries overheating. Dell announced a recall of about 22,000 of its notebook computer batteries in December, 2005. And Apple Computer recalled 128,000 batteries shipped in its PowerBook G4 and iBook G4 laptops in the spring of 2005.

"The propensity for these devices to explode has been known for some time, and regulatory bodies and manufacturers need to turn up the heat on solving these issues rather than using recalls as a band-aid solution," said Levy.

Info-Tech is urging vendors to be more proactive in their approach to the issue of overheating laptops to avoid a future catastrophe.

"Computer vendors need to ensure more rigorous testing of batteries before deploying them in their computers and should be working closely with safety organizations to raise the bar on regulations for the industry," said Info-Tech's Levy.

About Info-Tech Research Group

With a paid membership of over 20,000 worldwide, Info-Tech Research Group (www.infotech.com) is the global leader in providing information technology research and analysis to the mid-sized enterprise market. It is North America's fastest growing full-service IT analyst firm.

-------
Source: Info-Tech Research Group

Implementation gone awry

2006-08-14T12:41:00.000-07:00

So many technical implementations are dependent upon the people and processes used to implement them. Listen to this:

Two weeks after district officials said they were correcting problems associated with a switch to a new software program, some employees have yet to receive a paycheck for work over the summer.

When the district switched to a new software program called PeopleSoft in early July, employees complained about glitches, incorrect or confusing training manuals and fouled up or missing paychecks.

So many angered employees showed up to the district's payroll department to complain that school police were called in. This week, the district's payroll manager, Alvin Dunn, resigned....

The district spent $4 million on the software program and $14 million on consultants to implement it in 164 schools and district headquarters.

It replaced an antiquated program with a point-and-click program that allows databases in different departments to talk to one another. Hundreds of employees were trained over several months on the new program. Payroll dry runs went well.

In January, however, the director of the project, consultant Erick Sherman, resigned. Moore said the district hired the consulting company and had no say in how the company moved employees. He said the district had no complaints about their work. Sherman could not be reached for comment.

But COO Joe Moore figured out what the problem was.

Moore said in hindsight the district should have hired experts to teach employes how to use the system. Instead, it relied on a train-the-trainer model where employees got training and passed it on to colleagues.

And, of course, a committee has been formed:

Superintendent Art Johnson has expanded a standing committee on the project to include principals, secretaries and bookkeepers.

What about parents and students? We need the required amount of inclusiveness so that the blame can be distributed.

I just hope the new committee members weren't trained by the old members. We all know that train the trainer doesn't work.

The Sydney Morning Players - Fire (ouch!)

2006-08-01T10:40:00.000-07:00

This is probably more a Carmi Levy thing, but I'll note it anyway.

InfoWorld links to a Sydney Morning Herald article:

A reader in Singapore, who has requested that he not be identified, told us his Dell laptop supplied to him by his company had been involved in a similar act of self-immolation.

The incident took place one evening in early November. The man was working late in the office when the computer, which was running on battery power, suddenly began to make "popping noises".

"It wasn't quite an explosion, but white smoke began to pour out of the machine, completely filling up the room, and there were flames coming up the sides of the laptop," he said.

Carmi hasn't covered this story yet, but he's talked about the issue before.

Experiment Status July 28

2006-07-28T14:15:00.000-07:00

Remember my experiment?

Even though the words "Cindy Margolisless" do not appear in my main blog, it does appear on the Google search results for the phrase - in the last position.

As of now, there are very few links to the Ontario Empoblog that use the phrase Cindy Margolisless (I just added another one for the fun of it).

Here is a reproduction of the Google search results as of today:

KOER Synthetica Radio Transcripts
Moving on, this radio station has been Cindy Margolisless until now, but that is going to change in mere seconds. Um... HELLO ONTARIO! And we welcome Cindy ...
koer.blogspot.com/ - 65k - Cached - Similar pages

blog.myspace.com/oemperor
I will do my best to ensure that my main blog, the Ontario Empoblog, remains Cindy Margolisless. More here. Join the fun. ...
blog.myspace.com/oemperor - 64k - Cached - Similar pages

Ontario Technoblog
Now all that I have to do is to ensure that the Ontario Empoblog remains Cindy Margolisless. posted by Ontario Emperor | 08:20 | 0 comments links to this ...
otechno.blogspot.com/ - 61k - Jul 26, 2006 - Cached - Similar pages

Ontario Empoblog
Self-proclaimed emperor of Ontario, California discusses music, politics, entertainment, and Barstow.
oemperor.blogspot.com/ - 144k - Jul 26, 2006 - Cached - Similar pages

More at KOER.

I'll try to add some more links to see if I can move the Empoblog up on the list.

If you feel like playing along, go ahead and link to oemperor.blogspot.com with the text Cindy Margolisless.

If you feel like disrupting the experiement by taking the text Cindy Margolisless and linking to another site that includes this phrase, that's fine too. In general, promotion of a Cindy Margolisless world is a good thing.

ScatterChat

2006-07-26T17:20:00.000-07:00

From the ScatterChat website:

ScatterChat is a HACKTIVIST WEAPON designed to allow non-technical human rights activists and political dissidents to communicate securely and anonymously while operating in hostile territory. It is also useful in corporate settings, or in other situations where privacy is desired.

It is a secure instant messaging client (based upon the Gaim software) that provides end-to-end encryption, integrated onion-routing with Tor, secure file transfers, and easy-to-read documentation.

Its security features include resiliency against partial compromise through perfect forward secrecy, immunity from replay attacks, and limited resistance to traffic analysis... all reinforced through a pro-actively secure design.

Faulty Experiment Design, And A Second Attempted Correction

2006-07-25T08:20:00.000-07:00

I made a mistake when I designed my experiment on Saturday, July 22. That was the day in which I discussed the strategy which put Senator William Napoli's website at the top of Google searches for "sexist asshat."

If you read to the end of that post, you probably figured out what my experiment was going to be. In case you didn't, I was (and still am) trying to ensure that the Ontario Technoblog is the first-listed search item when you perform a Google search for the words "top technoweenie blog."

This morning, I realized the mistake that I made in my experiment: I used the term on the target page itself. Granted, after a couple of months (if I behave myself from now on) the term will scroll off the main page of this blog. Still, I've ruined the experiment by repeating the phrase in this blog, so any Google results are naturally faulty.

So I attempted the experiment a second time, selecting a new phrase, designing a link which used the new phrase, and pointing the link toward the Ontario Empoblog. (The phrase, by the way, was superdangdang. The phrase "superdang" was already taken.)

However, I made one mistake. Instead of posting that entry in the Ontario Technoblog, I mistakenly posted it in the Ontario Empoblog. Since the phrase "superdangdang" now inadvertently appears in the Ontario Empoblog, and even deletion of the post from that blog would not delete it from various rss feeds and caches, the experiment is ruined.

So I have to try again. (Pause while I double check to make sure THIS post is going in the Ontario Technoblog. Whew.)

Now I have to choose a phrase that has not appeared in the Ontario Empoblog, or anywhere else yet. Borrowing an idea from a post in my relatively new blog at MySpace, and after a sanity check, I can proceed.

Now all that I have to do is to ensure that the Ontario Empoblog remains Cindy Margolisless.

More on the MySpace Power Failure

2006-07-23T23:08:00.000-07:00

From Netcraft:

Social networking site MySpace.com is offline tonight, and attributing the downtime to a power outage in its data center. The site is among the most popular on the Internet, with some services estimating that it is now the most visited destination on the Web, surpassing Google and Yahoo.

MySpace.com was completely inaccessible for more than 90 minutes, and then displayed a brief message alerting users to the problems: "Hey everyone! There's been a power outage in our data center. we're in the process of fixing it right now, so sit tight. - Tom" (presumably MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson)....

The message at MySpace did not specify which of its data centers had experienced the power outage. Over the past several days MySpace.com has been alternating between two IP addresses, one at CWIE.net in Tempe, Ariz. and another in a new Equinix data center in El Segundo, Calif. The temporary message was being displayed from the Tempe IP address.

MySpace.com is ranked in the top 10 most visited sites on the Web by some Internet research services, but places much lower (77th overall) on the list of most popular sites among users of the Netcraft toolbar. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. bought the site for $580 million last July. In May MySpace said the expansion into Equinix's data center will allow it to improve peering with network service providers, which will help in managing traffic surges and high-bandwidth features such as multimedia streaming.

But this article, posted July 24 UTC (July 23 today), actually misses part of the story. The outage actually started on July 22, as elitestv notes:

Myspace.com posted an announcement tonight at 6:40PM PST time that their data center had a power outage. Tom went on to post the following message:

"hey everyone! there's been a power outage in our data center. we're in the process of fixing it right now, so sit tight. hopefully we'll be back online within the hour. its 6:40pm PST now. wanna place a bet? -Tom"

There were many bets placed to Tom and he has lost since it is now 9:40PM PST.

I saw the message above on Saturday night. Rechecking a few times today, the site was giving error messages, then appeared to be up at one point, but last I checked appeared to be back down again.

According to Drew Olanoff, it's not just MySpace that was affected:

Soaring California temperatures prompt record power use, outages - Myspace reports they had power loss, and many Yahoo services are down, also due to power loss

For the record, my home in Ontario, California lost power twice today. But this did not affect the computing habits of millions.

Meanwhile, Mashable posted this (emphasis mine):

Hear that? That’s the sound of 80 million people hitting the refresh button.

MySpace, one of the world’s most popular sites (perhaps the most popular), has suffered a major outage today - the URL fails to load at all. At 6:40pm last night, Tom posted a message on the leading social networking site stating that a power outage had taken out the MySpace servers. The site came back to “normal” service within a few hours, but after some unreliable performance today, MySpace.com is down completely....

It’s pretty significant when such a massive site goes down for an extended period of time - can you imagine what would happen if Google, or even Yahoo, went offline for hours at a time?...With MySpace, however, it’s almost expected: users regularly see errors and the code is notoriously poor. It’s not clear whether this current downtime is caused by the power problem, or something else....

Here's an up to the minute Technorati search on the words myspace power failure.

Perhaps in a few days we'll know how much of the problem was caused by the power failure itself, and how much was caused by "something else." However, even if this was an instance of MySpace bugs keeping the system down, J. Botter notes that it may not matter:

MySpace is not what it is because of software. Friendster, Orkut, Tagged, and several other startups all have better software and backend applications than MySpace does. MySpace is buggy, it’s shady, it stops working quite often; not exactly the hallmark of a killer app. It is a killer app, however, because of the sheer amount of people who traffic through the site every single day.

After looking at the Alexa data for myspace.com, Botter continues:

When a social networking site to go from low traffic levels to one of the top twenty sites on the entire internet, you’ve got to step back and take a look at it in comparison to competition. By doing this, we can see just how the rest of the social networking startups fared against MySpace’s monster traffic levels.

After looking at Friendster (the outfit that fired Troutgirl), Botter says:

Friendster is dead in the water. It’s not peaking, and it’s not even going through a valley where there might be some hope on the other side. It’s just there, sitting listlessly, waiting for people to start using it again and hopefully make it the darling of the Valley again, but it ain’t happening.

Botter also looks at Orkut and Tagworld, but doesn't see any serious competition for MySpace - at present:

The main thing to keep in mind here is that MySpace has a stranglehold on the social networking space…but it’s not gonna last forever. There are better services out there like TagWorld that have a legitimate chance to grab more of that market share simply because MySpace ain’t fixing what is clearly broken.

Yes, MySpace has the largest grip on this space. It’s holding it fast and is dominating the actual BEST social networking service (TagWorld) just by sheer amounts of ACTIVE user accounts.

So what does this say for TagWorld? What can they do to start drawing people over from MySpace and have those people stick around and become active members that invite friends, post comments, and generally use the bad ass TagWorld System to prove that TagWorld is eions better than Myspace?

It’s gonna take people jumping ship. Spreading the word to friends, telling them to try TW because it kicks the ever loving shit out of MySpace. MySpace is broken 65% of the time you’re trying to use it anyway, so why not give TagWorld a try at least? Anyone who has a MySpace account needs to go and invite their friends to try out TagWorld. I double-damm guarantee you that people who try out MySpace and then try out TagWorld will notice a gigantic difference, a HUGE difference, and they’ll want to get their friends checking it out, and it’ll grow from there. This is where the social networking pieces fit — because TagWorld is so much better built for social networking than MySpace is.

Meanwhile, Matt Heerema also voices the "buggy, but" opinion:

I hate MySpace. It is programmed in .NET, is buggy, full of annoying ads, and is EXTREMELY ugly. However, it is an amazing social phenomenon. 50 million users. Wow. Insane. Amazing....

Google Bombing and the Top Technoweenie Blog

2006-07-22T12:25:00.000-07:00

Chalk it up to ignorance. I thought that Google categorized pages based upon content. I didn't realize that the content of links could influence the listing:

Senator William Napoli of South Dakota attracted a lot of media attention with his example of a woman who would constitute an exception to the state's recent ban of abortions. In his view, only a religious virgin who was "brutalized, raped and sodomized as bad as vigourosly as possible then is impregnated" should be offered the choice of a legal abortion. This remark prompted several backlashes online, including a Google-bombing by a blog called "Bitch | Lab." Anyone offended by the senator's remarks is encouraged to post a link to his page of the South Dakota legislature homepage with the phrase, "sexist asshat." Napoli's page is now the first hit for that phrase.

Bitch | Lab explains how this worked:

Link the phrase, sexist asshat, to the Napoli’s Web site....

You can also write e-mail messages to email lists that accept HTML. Type a message with the phrase ‘sexist asshat‘ and link to Napoli’s Web site....

If you have a blog, you can also put a link for sexist asshat in your blog link list or blog roll (though you can’t use blogrolling for this)....

Doing this will help spread the idea via Technorati and Truth Laid Bear. Google and search engines sometimes also rank blogrolls and front page links more heavily than they rank links contained in posts.

One goal is to make it so that, if you search for “sexist asshat,” then you’ll get Napoli’s page.

As of late July, the strategy was working.

Wikipedia includes additional explanation:

Due to the way that Google's PageRank algorithm works, a page will be ranked higher if the sites that link to that page all use consistent anchor text. A Google bomb is created if a large number of sites link to the page in this manner....

An example of Google bombing is if a user registers many domains and all of them link to a main site with the text "... is a living legend". Searching for "living legend" on Google will return the main site higher in the ranking, even if the phrase "living legend" doesn't appear on the main site. A common means of exploiting this is through weblogs, where although the entry may disappear from the main page quickly, the short-term effects of a link can dramatically affect the ranking of a given site. Empirical results indicate that it does not take a large number of websites to achieve a Google bomb. The effect has been achieved with only a handful of dedicated weblogs.

The above has to be qualified, however. A handful of blog links will not Google bomb someone like Amazon.com out of the top results for "books," for example. In fact, Google bombs have generally had an impact on relatively "non-competitive" terms, where there's no particular page that seems to be necessarily the right answer.

The Napoli example demonstrates this. As of today, the Google search sexist asshat returns about 38,200 responses. If you remove the targeted Napoli resposnes by using the search sexist asshat -napoli, there are still about 37,100 responses. In other words, less than 2.9% of the web pages with the words "sexist asshat" link to the Napoli page, but that's enough to put that page at the top of the list.

In fact, this top technoweenie blog is going to try an experiment. I'll keep you posted.

Pay no attention to the similarities behind the curtain

2006-07-13T12:41:00.000-07:00

There are various sources that talk about the technologies behind a particular market. myvoipprovider.com provides some insight behind the operations of Betamax - no, no a tape company, but one that provides VoIP services under a bewildering variety of names:

The Betamax group of VoIP services is made up of 11 apparently different companies. Many users do not realize that VoIPBuster, VoIPCheap.co.uk, Netappel, SIP Discount, Voipstunt, Sparvoip, Internetcalls, Voipdiscount, Poivy, Voipcheap.com and freecall.com are all part of the same group....

List of Betamax VoIP services

Here is a list of services we are aware of; if you come across others, please send us an e-mail to info@myvoipprovider.com

These services provide a soft phone to use on your MS Windows PC, but also work with SIP devices and other softphones (as of May 3, there are instructions for configuring SIP devices on all of the websites):

http://www.internetcalls.com
http://www.netappel.com
http://www.poivy.com

http://www.sparvoip.de
http://www.voipbuster.com
http://www.voipcheap.com
http://www.voipcheap.co.uk (careful, different "free" list from voipcheap.com, and rates listed in Sterling Pence instead of Euro Cents!)
http://www.voipdiscount.com
http://www.voipstunt.com
http://www.freecall.com (launched 29 June 2006)
http://www.voiparound.com (launched 29 June 2006)

Some of these services are also available with a different top-level domain, i.e. netappel.com is also available as netappel.fr, voipstunt.com is also available as voipstunt.de, etc.

The following service is geared specifically towards users of SIP devices and does NOT provide a softphone. It does require an MS Windows program though to register for the service. It will work with standard SIP softphones such as Firefly or X-Lite.

http://www.sipdiscount.com

The following service requires an Internet Connection, a Web Browser, and a normal telephone; it is a web-activated callback service rather than a normal VoIP service (although it is probably
implemented internally by VoIP):

http://www.webcalldirect.com

...

It seems that initially Finarea ran its own Asterisk servers offering SIP/IAX connectivity, they were located in different hosting centers across Europe (Colt Germany, Rackspace UK, etc). Shortly before the transfer to Betamax they started to consolidate all of their services on servers operated by TVIconnect BV, who are PSTN termination providers for callshops across Europe....

Dialing with the Country Code

All of the Betamax VoIP services expect the numbers to be dialed in the following format:

00+44+Area code+number. (44 for the UK for example)

In some countries it is now possible to dial a local number without the 00 and the country code. (This seems to be limited to some European countries, but go ahead and test if it also applicable to your home country). This option depends on the address you registered.

Blogs of note

2006-07-13T11:41:00.000-07:00

Found this through an InfoWorld-sponsored networking service:

ECM Industry Watch. Sample post:

According to an upcoming AIIM Industry Watch Survey (for release end of July), suppliers of technology solutions in the compliance area should work hard to position their solution not only as "technology" per se, but also as helping in solving a key cost center -- documenting policies and procedures....

Someone else (Tim) mentioned that he has a health care technology blog, but you had to dig through his profile to find the link to Medical Connectivity. Sample post:

Entree Wireless has packaged the Kyocera mobile router...in a rugged, self-contained battery/charger/equipment package to provide a portable Wi-Fi hotspot....

Very cool. This is just the thing for a temporary triage area to support wireless computing devices, patient monitors and other wireless medical devices.

It's a small world after all - and it talks back (or shrieks back)

2006-07-10T12:39:00.000-07:00

When you fly on planes, you end up reading Skymall and finding things like this:

"Alive" Chimpanzee.

Now this is a real robot. So real, it's unreal! The amazing "Alive" Chimpanzee is a life-size, lifelike product of the latest Hollywood "F/X" animatronics - state-of-the-art robotic technology dedicated to making machines that look, sound and act like real animals. This extraordinary creature is an extremely responsive, highly intelligent "primate" robot with keen artificial intelligence.

This is the entire description that appeared in the magazine. This is the entire description that appeared on the website. However, it doesn't really answer the question - what does the chimp DO? I had to go to the Sharper Image website to find out.

OK, so it doesn't quote Shakespeare. Here's what it actually does:

"Alive" Chimpanzee can see, hear and feel in ways that allow him to interact intelligently with you, your family, your guests...and with baffled strangers.

Soulful eyes track movements using infrared "radar" vision; his ears have stereoscopic sound sensors; his skin reacts to contact with touch sensors all around.

Four distinctive emotional moods include "Curious," "Happy," "Fearful" and "Feisty."

This thing has been around for a while, and Ryan Jett took a few moments to think about it:

Is it cool? Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Until you think about it with your mind. I can understand why someone would find a robotic chimp pretty damn rad; imagine coming home from a hard day at work to be welcomed by a big, friendly Robo-Chimp hug and beer that he’s been kind enough to fetch you from the fridge. Pretty sweet. But that’s not what we have here. What we have is a robotic chimp head. Got that? A fully articulated, decapitated simian capable of autonomous movement and vocalization. For all intents and purposes, you are purchasing a stationary object whose primary function is to scream at you like a banshee from atop your bookcase. It’s not as if it speaks, you see; in an effort at total realism, the makers have given this shrieking bust the vocal abilities of a real chimp.

Well, someone (who may or may not have heard of Kevin & Bean's theory about primates taking over the world) overreacted:

For months I've tried to convince you...sheep that we are under attack. I spoke of a well organized movement wherein monkeys devise a plan and slowly move toward world domination....

As if my fears (or intense psychotic paranoia, as you like to call it) weren't enough, what do I find in the local SkyMall catalogue?...

Even more disturbing, I asked my flight attendant, a smallish Latino named Cilantro, if such a thing could be carried on an aircraft. To my horror, he said that, if it could fit into a carry-on bag, and fit in an overhead bin, he didn't see why not.

It was around that time that I started hyperventilating....

This isn't the first interactive toy, obviously. Even in 2002, there were tons of them:

Toys have talked for years. The first talking doll dates to the 19th century. By 1960, Chatty Cathy had ushered in the modern era of talking toys with a vocabulary of 11 phrases, including "Will you play with me?" A generation ago, Teddy Ruxpin's incredibly lifelike chatter delighted toddlers, even if it freaked out adults like me. And who could forget the flap over Teen Talk Barbie's affront to girl power a decade ago when she exclaimed "Math is hard!"

Consider yourself warned: This holiday season, we're going to see a wave of toys that listen, too. Incorporating tiny microchips, these toys can actually understand certain key phrases, then intelligently respond. It presages, for better or worse, a major breakthrough in how toys interact with kids, and thus how kids respond to their toys.

Aloha Stitch, an interactive version of the animated creature from this summer's Disney's "Lilo & Stitch," has sold well since its August release. And scads of similar toys are on the way. My favorites: a remote-controlled R2-D2 and a goofy line of cosmic pet rocks called P.O.D.Z.

The author, Jim Louderback, then looks at the ramifications of this:

Given the ability of these toys to hold conversations, where is a child's relationship with his or her toy headed? Until now it's been largely one-sided -- children dictate the course of the relationship -- and the assumption has been that toys love unconditionally.

But that's no longer the case, thanks to the technology embedded in their little smiling heads. Like its cinematic counterpart, Stitch the toy isn't always so agreeable. Ask him if he's hungry and he might respond, "Not anymore. I ate your dinner ... buurrrp!"

And the businessman carried the bomb onto the plane

2006-06-29T12:26:00.000-07:00

Carmi Levy has written a press release.

Press Release Source: Info-Tech Research Group

Exploding Laptops Pose Potential Hazard for Air Travel and Personal Safety says Info-Tech Research Group
Wednesday June 28, 3:46 pm ET
Personal Computing Industry must Address the Issues

LONDON, ON, June 28 /PRNewswire/ - Incidents of computer batteries erupting in smoke, fire and even explosions have caused numerous laptop recalls within the last year and pose a threat to personal safety by users especially during air travel, Info-Tech Research Group stated today.

"The most recent event we're aware of involved a Dell laptop exploding and bursting into flames at a business meeting in Osaka, Japan," said Info-Tech's Senior Analyst Carmi Levy. "The potential for an in-flight incident of this nature when travelers are using battery power for portable PCs certainly exists. Everyone worries about covert explosives being taken on board planes, but what about the average laptop that could be just as dangerous?"

Recalls related to computer batteries overheating have been issued by at least three computer equipment manufacturers within the last year. Hewlett-Packard (HP) announced a recall of some 15,700 HP and Compaq notebook computer batteries in April this year after 20 reports of batteries overheating. Dell announced a recall of about 22,000 of its notebook computer batteries in December, 2005. And Apple Computer recalled 128,000 batteries shipped in its PowerBook G4 and iBook G4 laptops in the spring of 2005.

"The propensity for these devices to explode has been known for some time, and regulatory bodies and manufacturers need to turn up the heat on solving these issues rather than using recalls as a band-aid solution," said Levy.

Info-Tech is urging vendors to be more proactive in their approach to the issue of overheating laptops to avoid a future catastrophe.

"Computer vendors need to ensure more rigorous testing of batteries before deploying them in their computers and should be working closely with safety organizations to raise the bar on regulations for the industry," said Info-Tech's Levy.

About Info-Tech Research Group

With a paid membership of over 20,000 worldwide, Info-Tech Research Group (www.infotech.com) is the global leader in providing information technology research and analysis to the mid-sized enterprise market. It is North America's fastest growing full-service IT analyst firm.

Source: Info-Tech Research Group

Hewlett Packard Americas Partner Conference

2006-06-20T18:13:00.000-07:00

I am currently in Las Vegas, Nevada, attending the Hewlett Packard Americas Partner Conference. The sessions are generally valuable (although 2 1/2 hour sessions can be excruciating), Mark Hurd spoke well last night, and John Fogerty is scheduled to appear this evening.

No new technical announcements here, but you can certainly pick up on HP's emphases, including their views on the competition: IBM, Dell, Sun, and others. In one session, one of the attendees talked about Xerox in the printer market, and some of the financial incentives that Xerox is reputedly providing to sell its printers.

Yes, financial incentives. This conference is about selling stuff, gaining market share, gaining margin. Good stuff.

Obviously HP wants its partners to sell the whole HP portfolio, and will adjust its incentives accordingly. Even if it means fewer partners:

Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd said HP will give channel partners whatever resources it takes to beat Dell, IBM and other rivals, but in the future he sees the vendor going to battle with fewer but more loyal partners.

"We are looking for aggressive help, and we'll get just as aggressive as we possibly can to go to the marketplace and win in these strategic battlegrounds," Hurd said late Monday in a keynote address to 1,200 solution providers at HP's Americas Partner Conference in Las Vegas. "We need you. We need your help. There's virtually nothing we wouldn't do short of illegal or unethical to help you go to the marketplace and win."...

In response to a solution provider question on where he sees HP as a company in three years, Hurd said, "I hope we would be leading in most efficiency categories. I hope we are [in a] three-year evolution of the trends and strategies I have described ... and the channel, if it is not doing the same percent of business, doing more.

"But at the same time, I would like to see higher attach and higher loyalty indexes coming out of our channel," Hurd continued. "If that means for us to coalesce around fewer channel partners, I'd be fine with that. If you look at our aggregated list of channel partners, we almost have as many people that call themselves partners as we have employees in the company. We want to put more energy behind key partners that really want to rally behind us."

One word has not been uttered in public during this conference - Carly. But she's still around:

She was the first lady of American business during her 5 1/2 -year tenure at Hewlett-Packard Co. But after a contentious proxy battle with Walter Hewlett and a merger with Houston-based Compaq Computer, Fiorina was shown the door as HP suffered major financial setbacks.

Such a hard fall from the corner office might have been a career stopper for some. Not Fiorina.

More than a year after she was fired, Fiorina has emerged as a sought-after board member, an inspirational speaker at home and abroad and as an author, poised to release a "brutally honest" memoir, Tough Choices, in October.

Perhaps most importantly, Fiorina is building a bridge between Silicon Valley and Washington, hoping to use her contacts in the nation's capital to help the technology industry fulfill its agenda.

Back to the new boss. Hurd and company took great pains to state that the new HP salespeople that they're hiring are intended to complement the channel:

HP (NYSE:HPQ - News; Nasdaq:HPQ - News) today announced that it is bolstering its channel program with increased financial incentives -- in some case by more than 50 percent -- and expanded field sales support to magnify the competitive advantage of its channel partners.

Introduced at the HP Americas Partner Conference, the enhanced program spans HP's businesses. For the United States and Canada, the program increases incentives for the second half of HP's fiscal year, giving channel partners the opportunity to receive a 50 percent increase in compensation for the sales of certain products.

The increased incentives apply to the industry-standard server business -- including the recently announced HP BladeSystem c-Class -- and for personal systems products and services. It nearly doubles incentives for color and multi-function printers.

Additionally, HP is increasing its investment by 20 percent in resources to help channel partners hunt, mine and close business. Channel partners will get more field sales support, including more business managers, sales specialists and system engineers.

At this conference, there are partners, and there are partners. At the top of the chain are the two Platinum Sponsors, Intel and Microsoft. Arrayed below this are the Gold Sponsors, Cisco, Citrix, Oracle, Red Hat, SAP, and VMware. Plus there are a bunch of Silver Partners, but you have to search to find out who they are. (If you're curious, they're Accenture, AMD, AT&T, Axway, BEA Systems, Brocade Communications, Capgemini, Cognos, Compuware, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Hyperion Solutions, i2 Technologies, Informatic Corporation, Novell, QAD, Sage Software, SAS, SSA Global, Symantec, and UGS.)

P.S. If you want to book John Fogerty for *your* corporate event, go here.

Educating the Providers, and the Buzz Crosses the Atlantic

2006-06-16T14:43:00.000-07:00

As wi-fi spreads out to more and more places, sometimes the people who run the places don't even know that they offer wi-fi. Take British pubs:

One of the biggest problems to overcome in getting London unplugged and online with wireless internet access will be getting businesses to realise they are actually able to offer it to their customers.

A silicon.com investigation has unveiled widespread ignorance among the staff of London pubs that are offering wi-fi. Although we found the service is often up and running on their premises the majority of pubs contacted by silicon.com said they offered no such service.

In one instance, while compiling our guide to London's wi-fi pubs, we were rudely told that they had no such thing and to get off the phone and stop wasting time. At others our question either wasn't understood or was shrugged off with disinterest. At the Lord Moon of the Mall, part of the Wetherspoon's group, our question was met with a chuckling suggestion that the barman had rarely heard such a stupid question in all his years of pulling pints.

The internet in a pub, whatever next?

Impressively, most Wetherspoon's pubs in London offer wi-fi on their premises, so it seems even more remiss that staff employed by the group didn't know this fact....

Katie Hollier, head of marketing at The Cloud...said part of the problem is due to the fact the hotspot is installed in the ITbox games machines which many pubs have and the unit's manufacturer, Inspired Broadcast Networks, hasn't seen internet access as a marketing priority.

Speaking of games in London, NTN Buzztime has expanded outside of the United States and Canada:

Welcome to Buzztime, the new interactive entertainment system for pubs and hospitality venues.

Recently launched in the UK, Buzztime enables you to play a great variety of challenging quiz and casino games – for free, all day, and everyday.

See Where To Play for your nearest pub, or check out the Hall of Fame for the leaders of each game, and why not register for the Player Plus programme that entitles you to play selected games for prizes.

When I last visted a Buzztime location on this side of the pond, they were promoting a cross-Atlantic challenge on Saturday, July 8. I'll probably be in an airplane when this happens, unfortunately.

PCWorld's 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

2006-05-26T12:04:00.000-07:00

More details here.

America Online (1989-2006)
RealNetworks RealPlayer (1999)
Syncronys SoftRAM (1995)
Microsoft Windows Millennium (2000)
Sony BMG Music CDs (2005)
Disney The Lion King CD-ROM (1994)
Microsoft Bob (1995)
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (2001)
Pressplay and Musicnet (2002)
dBASE IV (1988)
Priceline Groceries and Gas (2000)
PointCast (1996)
IBM PCjr. (1984)
Gateway 2000 10th Anniversary PC (1995)
Iomega Zip Drive (1998)
Comet Cursor (1997)
Apple Macintosh Portable (1989)
IBM Deskstar 75GXP (2000)
OQO Model 1 (2004)
CueCat (2000)
Eyetop Wearable DVD Player (2004)
Apple Pippin @World (1996)
Free PCs (1999)
DigiScents iSmell (2001)
Sharp RD3D Notebook (2004)

Let's dig into one of these in more detail:

RealPlayer...had a disturbing way of making itself a little too much at home on your PC--installing itself as the default media player, taking liberties with your Windows Registry, popping up annoying "messages" that were really just advertisements, and so on.

And some of RealNetworks' habits were even more troubling. For example, shortly after RealJukeBox appeared in 1999, security researcher Richard M. Smith discovered that the software was assigning a unique ID to each user and phoning home with the titles of media files played on it--while failing to disclose any of this in its privacy policy. Turns out that RealPlayer G2, which had been out since the previous year, also broadcast unique IDs. After a tsunami of bad publicity and a handful of lawsuits, Real issued a patch to prevent the software from tracking users' listening habits. But less than a year later, Real was in hot water again for tracking the habits of its RealDownload download-management software customers.

Programming difficulties

2006-05-16T14:56:00.000-07:00

I was presented with the statement "State machine programming is complex," but the statement pretty much went over my head. Here's what I found that related to the topic:

When doing data-driven programming, one clearly distinguishes code from the data structures on which it acts, and designs both so that one can make changes to the logic of the program by editing not the code but the data structure.

Data-driven programming is sometimes confused with object orientation, another style in which data organization is supposed to be central. There are at least two differences. One is that in data-driven programming, the data is not merely the state of some object, but actually defines the control flow of the program. Where the primary concern in OO is encapsulation, the primary concern in data-driven programming is writing as little fixed code as possible....

Programming data-driven style is also sometimes confused with writing state machines. It is in fact possible to express the logic of a state machine as a table or data structure, but hand-coded state machines are usually rigid blocks of code that are far harder to modify than a table.

Interestingly enough, the first entry in a Google search for "hard to program" isn't a typical computer programming language or platform - it's an entertainment device:

According to anonymous sources at Wal-Mart—a company so powerful that even MS must bow to its whims—the XBox360 will be priced at $299.99 with standard $59 games. It is also apparently very hard to program for so the first games will be Snake, Tic Tac Toe, and an exciting game called Hello World featuring a delicately rendered image of floating words in an extruded Helvetica font.

Apparently this is a problem (or is perceived to be a problem) on other gaming platforms:

Although few doubt the relative power of the Cell microprocessor, many have expressed concern over the chip’s “asymmetric design,” which makes programming for it a potential disaster.

One such man was 3D artist Josh Robinson, who was fired from his position at Sony just weeks after making a public, negative comment about PlayStation 3 development on his Internet blog.

“Let me first just say, all I really did was write a few paragraphs that gave my opinion on publicly released information,” said Robinson. “I never actually released any information. After reading my small article the reader is not any more informed about the PS3 than he was before the article.”

Marc Tremblay, chief architect of Sun's rival chip Niagra, told Forbes the Cell's uncooperative design will stifle adoption outside of the gaming world and said "the programming model is a nightmare."

Love to see the Daubert hearing on this one

2006-04-27T15:57:00.000-07:00

From Wired:

Researchers at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, are exploring the possibility of a biometric security device that will use a person's thoughts to authenticate her or his identity.

Their idea of utilizing brain-wave signatures as "pass-thoughts" is based on the premise that brain waves are unique to each individual. Even when thinking of the same thing, the brain's measurable electrical impulses vary slightly from person to person. Some researchers believe the difference might just be enough to create a system that allows you to log in with your thoughts....

The research is an outgrowth of efforts to build a brain-computer interface, or BCI, by trying to extract the meaningful parts of brain-wave signals measured by an electroencephalogram, or EEG, and translate them into recognizable computer commands that allow disabled people to control and manipulate prosthetic devices. A chief challenge facing BCI technology is that brain-wave signatures are unique, so a system trained to recognize a particular user can be quite difficult for another to manipulate....

However, some researchers are skeptical that a computer will ever be able to passively recognize a particular mental image in a person's head.

Iead Rezek, of the Pattern Analysis Research Group at the University of Oxford, says the proposal has "flair," but is impractical: Too many things are going on in the brain at the cellular level that all look the same from a scalp distance. "Signals from an uncountable number of nerve cells are smeared and lumped together by the time we are recording the brain-wave patterns," says Rezek. "Authentication is akin to recognizing speakers from muffled voices because, for example, the speakers are some distance away."...

[T]here remain pragmatic obstacles to rolling out pass-thoughts as a replacement for other biometrics. It's easy enough to slide an index finger into a fingerprint reader, but right now the only way to tap into a person's brain signals is through a highly inconvenient EEG cap that's smeared with conductive gel and worn on the scalp.

Scott McNealy

2006-04-24T16:48:00.000-07:00

Sun's spin:

24.April.2006 - Sun's board of directors named Jonathan Schwartz chief executive officer today, as a result of the company's on-going succession planning process. Scott McNealy will continue as Sun chairman and takes on the additional title of chairman of Sun Federal Inc., where he will focus on Sun's key U.S. government customers. Today's announcement marks the culmination of a carefully architected succession plan....

With today's announcement, Jonathan Schwartz becomes chief executive officer of a company with a clear path, a solid team and its greatest days ahead of it.

AP has a different spin:

Scott McNealy, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems Inc., said Monday he will step down immediately as chief executive of the company he has led since 1984.

Jonathan Schwartz, the company's president, will retain that position and take over as chief executive, McNealy said on a conference call to announce third-quarter results that included a wider loss on higher revenue....

On Monday, Sun posted a wider fiscal third-quarter loss, as costs for acquisitions, stock-based compensation and restructuring chipped away at higher revenue.

The net loss for the three months ending March 26 was $217 million, or 6 cents a share, compared with $28 million, or 1 cent, in the same period last year. Revenue grew 5 percent to $3.18 billion from $2.63 billion as recent acquisitions boosted sales.

InfoWorld's Ephraim Schwartz leans toward the latter:

The news that Sun's Scott McNealy stepped aside today from the helm should come as no surprise. The only thing I would be surprised at are those who think he actually stepped aside and wasn't pushed by the board.

The financial news coming out of Sun has been bleak since 2002 with estimates that the total loses since the dot-com bubble burst is about $4.5 billion.

Some say Jonathan Schwartz will complete the move to the network computer.

The question is, does the concept of a super-thin client, no hard drives, intelligent cache, running anything but Windows have legs. Can Sun under Schwartz sell it. And I mean literally sell it.

Others, like Josh Greenbaum, principal at Enterprise Applications Consulting, has different advice for Schwartz.

Greenbaum says Sun's major failing is it has never been able to capitalize on the software leadership that it generated over the years, with Java being the best example.

There is no Java revenue stream....

Ashish was thinking:

Scott McNealy is stepping down and Jonathan will be the new CEO of Sun Microsystems. As he is staying as the chairman of the board and the president of the company, it is yet to see how significant this move would be. But the stocks were up and quickly closing in to $6. Lets see where does Jonathan sail this ship to. The questions if this move is too late, or what if he had done it earlier to keep Ed Zander in will remain unanswered. But he will be missed though.

Just because you're on a secure website doesn't mean that you're secure

2006-04-21T09:14:00.000-07:00

From American Express Emphasis mine.

As an example of phishing, please note that some of our customers reported receiving the following pop-up screen while logged into our secure site. The pop-up screen is known to be a hoax and contains the following information:

Approximate date of the hoax: 3/29/2006 - present
Title of Pop-Up Box : Security Measures [see below]
Information Requested: Social Security Number, Mother's Maiden Name, Date of Birth

Please note that this fraudulent activity may be the result of a computer virus and is not a part of the American Express website. If you received this pop-up box, your computer may have this virus. The use of both anti-virus software and a firewall to protect your PC are strongly recommended.

Think UNIX? Think Microsoft?

2006-04-13T12:12:00.000-07:00

If you subscribe to any IT magazine, you've probably seen the fold out ads, which trumpet how MegaCorp (the company varies) is running business critical operations affecting untold numbers of users.

Open the foldout, and you'll see that they're using Microsoft Windows Server, instead of Linux, to accomplish this.

Linux is of course the latest UNIX variant to become popular within the IT community, but let's look back at a UNIX variant that was popular over twenty years ago...sold by Microsoft.

Xenix was a version of the Unix operating system, licensed by Microsoft from AT&T in the 1980s. The Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) later acquired exclusive rights to the software, and eventually began distributing it as SCO UNIX.

Ooh, the bad guys.

Xenix was Microsoft's version of Unix intended for use on microprocessors, but they called it Xenix because it could not license the "UNIX" name.

Microsoft purchased a license for Version 7 Unix from AT&T in 1979, and announced on August 25, 1980 that it would make it available for the 16-bit microcomputer market.

Xenix varied from its 7th Edition origins by incorporating elements from BSD, and soon possessed the most widely installed base of any Unix flavour due to the popularity of the inexpensive x86 processor....

Version 2.0 of Xenix was released in 1985 and was based on UNIX System V. An update numbered 2.1.1 added support for the Intel 80286 processor. Subsequent releases improved System V compatibility.

When Microsoft entered into an agreement with IBM to develop OS/2, it lost interest in promoting Xenix. In 1987 Microsoft transferred ownership of Xenix to SCO in an agreement that left Microsoft owning 25% of SCO....

Microsoft continued to use Xenix internally, submitting a patch to support functionality in UNIX to AT&T in 1987, which trickled down to the code base of both Xenix and SCO UNIX. Microsoft is said to have used Xenix on Sun workstations [1] and VAX minicomputers extensively within their company as late as 1992.

In the late 1980s, Xenix was, according to Samuel J. Leffler et al. in The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD UNIX Operating System (1989), "probably the most widespread version of the UNIX operating system, according to the number of machines on which it runs" (p. 7).

That was then. This is now:

Microsoft stunned LinuxWorld attendees...by pledging to support Linux virtual machines on its Virtual Server and revealing free virtual machine additions for Red Hat Linux and Novell SUSE Linux. It wasn't the only dogs-playing-with-cats kind of moment...: Apple offered up software to let Windows run on Intel-based Macs.

What's going on here? The answer is virtualization, the ability to much more easily carve up servers and PCs into compartments that can run multiple applications under different operating systems at the same time. Business interest in virtualization--particularly of servers--is picking up quickly, and vendors are racing to stake out this emerging market. The result could blur some of the hard-and-fast lines drawn between operating systems....

Microsoft's support for an operating system that rivals its lifeblood Windows is the most surprising development. In the past, it was possible to run Linux machines under Windows, but companies were on their own if problems arose. Support of Linux virtual machines running under Windows is a sign that Microsoft recognizes it's a heterogeneous world--companies, especially big ones, aren't all Windows. But it's also a defensive play to keep from losing the virtualization market to VMware or open source options as Microsoft tries to get its act together....

Microsoft's hand may have been forced. VMware, the EMC-owned market leader in virtualization software, started giving away VMware Server in February. VMware Server allows Windows or Linux to be hosted on an x86 server under Windows or any other operating system. The Xen 3.0 open source software takes advantage of virtualization hooks planted in the newest Intel and Advanced Micro Devices chips to enable the creation of a Windows or Linux virtual machine--or both--on the latest generation of x86 servers. Virtual Iron Software said last week it's abandoning its proprietary hypervisor and basing the 3.0 version of its policy-based management software for virtual machines on Xen....

Microsoft also wants its name on that list, as it expands its Systems Center tools. Companies "want the same tools to manage their virtual environments as are managing their physical ones" in the data center, says Jim Ni, group product manager for Windows Server marketing. To do so, Microsoft must produce its own hypervisor, virtualization software that functions like a microkernel operating system on top of a microprocessor, interpreting a Windows or Linux instruction from a virtual machine into the compiled language the chip can understand....

Microsoft plans to produce a hypervisor inside the upcoming Windows Longhorn server, scheduled for 2007, Ni says.

That lag, and Microsoft's history, may work against it in luring customers that want to run Linux virtual machines. "Microsoft is going to be very late to the game and will need to overcome a presumption that it will favor Windows," says Gordon Haff, virtualization analyst at Illuminata.

Types of security threats

2006-04-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

Hewlett Packard on the brain (I'll be attending the HP Americas Partner Conference in Las Vegas this June).

The HP website includes a page that discusses various types of security threats, and the measures to take to correct them. Excerpts are below.

Examples of defenses against loss of use include prevention of access, fire prevention and firefighting measures, safeguards against shock and impact in earthquake regions, and storage off site, in antimagnetic containers, of information on magnetic media. Insurance is another form of defense. Although it cannot prevent physical loss, it can mitigate financial loss....

Although wear and tear on equipment certainly is a cause of performance loss, it is a business problem, rather than one of security. System administrators should be aware of it and request the replacement of worn equipment as needed.

In the same sense, loss of performance or data due to incorrect usage also is not a security problem. On the other hand, it is one with which system administrators must be involved. For example, incorrect usage can deny use of the system to other users by tying up too much of the CPU. Solutions include:

Limitations on access by limiting user capabilities, or giving users access only to the resources they need to execute their tasks.

User training....

One type of sabotage involves access to the computer or system by unauthorized persons. For the most part, preventative measures are the same as those described under Prevention of Access....

A type of sabotage much harder to prevent is sabotage from internal sources. Examples include disgruntled employees, and accidental sabotage resulting from the inadvertent introduction of destructive software (Trojan horses, viruses) into the system.

Sabotage by users with otherwise legitimate access to the system can be minimized by enforcing limitations on capabilities and access. System logging facilities can be used to establish strict accountability for all users. Such accountability cannot prevent sabotage, but can aid in identifying the culprit....

Due to the power of the privileged mode capability (PM), System Managers should allocate it only to accounts, groups and users with an imperative need....

Prevention of accidental sabotage from destructive software can be minimized or prevented by education, strict rules against using unauthorized software, and well publicized penalties for doing so. Establishment of accountability can, again, aid in identifying the offender in such incidents....

Total prevention of accidental information disclosure is rarely possible. Employee education and appeals to employees' sense of company or national loyalty can help mitigate the problem, but not prevent it. Another technique is to disseminate vital information strictly on a need-to-know basis.

Deliberate theft of information in physical form, such as on disk, tape, and paper, can be minimized using the same techniques as those for preventing theft of equipment: prevention of access.

Techniques for preventing access include locking desks, cabinets, and files. Store media in locked cabinets rather than open racks, and enforce strict control over the distribution of sensitive documents.

When the information on media is no longer needed, the media is often reused by simply writing over the existing data. Depending on the medium, the data may be readable until it is overwritten, even if the medium have been reformatted. This is an easily overlooked breach of security.

Before returning disk, disk packs, and tapes to reuse, all labels should be removed in order to prevent a thief from easily picking out the tapes that may contain important information. Each disk or tape should be carefuly erased with a degausser type bulk tape eraser.

Techniques for protecting information in the system itself include locking computers, enforcing the use of passwords, prohibiting embedded passwords, and clearing computer screens and screen buffers.

All Those Years Ago...And Then Some (the story of two garages)

2006-04-01T16:16:00.000-08:00

Moving on from Jef Raskin.

On the occasion of Apple Computer's 30th anniversary, I was curious if anyone had tried to interview Steve Wozniak. Turns out that the San Jose Mercury News did. If you don't know the difference between Steve and Steve, Woz wasn't the one who thought he would change the world.

We did believe that computers would fit into every home because of the price and some of the things they did. We thought people would use the computer in the home for normal home things: You have a kitchen so you keep recipes on it. You have a checkbook and you can have the computer do the subtraction for you. We didn't realize what having a computer in virtually every home would be like -- how you can make a decision and a million lives are affected....

I didn't think, I'm going to change the world. No, I'm just going to build the best machines I can build that I would want to use in my own life. Steve [Jobs] was much more further-thinking....

It's ironic that Steve Wozniak wasn't good enough to design computers for Hewlett-Packard.

As soon as Steve Jobs suggested, ``Why don't we sell a PC board of this computer,'' I said, `I think I signed something, an employment contract, that said what I designed belongs to Hewlett-Packard.' And I loved that company. That was my company for life. So I approached Hewlett-Packard first. Boy, did I make a pitch. I wanted them to do it. I had the Apple I, and I had a description of what the Apple II could do. I spoke of color. I described an $800 machine that ran BASIC (an early computer language), came out of the box fully built and talked to your home TV. And Hewlett-Packard found some reasons it couldn't be a Hewlett-Packard product....

[B]y the time I was working on the Apple II, and we were selling the Apple I -- and I was working at Hewlett-Packard still -- they started up a project on my floor without telling me. . . . I asked to be on the project. I really wanted to work on computers. And they turned me down for the job. To this day I don't know why. I said, ``I don't have to run anything,'' even though I'd done all these things and they knew it. I said, ``I'll do a printer interface. I'll do the lowliest engineering job there is.'' I wanted to work on a computer at my company and they turned me down. When you think about it, every time they turned me down, it was fortunate for the world and it was fortunate for myself.

And being Steve Wozniak has its benefits:

I was in Boston once. I needed two AC adapters. I ran into this new Apple store. I went up to the counter, ``I'd like two 65-watt AC adapters.'' I didn't say anything about who I was. And they bring them out. I say, ``How much?'' They say, ``We are expensing it.'' I said, ``Yeah, but how do I pay for it?'' They said, ``No, no, no -- we are allowed to give gifts to special people.''

Back to Hewlett-Packard, which eventually released the Hewlett-Packard 85. Here's how they got there (remember, however, that history is written by the winners):

1972: Hewlett-Packard pioneers the era of personal computing with the first scientific hand-held calculator, the HP-35, which makes the engineer's slide rule obsolete.

1973: Stephen Wozniak joins HP.

1976: Steve Wozniak proposes that HP create a personal computer. He is rejected.

1976: October - Steve Wozniak remains at HP, but is soon convinced that he should leave and join Apple Computer.

1976: HP begins Project Capricorn, to build a computer-like calculator.

1980: January - HP completes work on the Capricorn project, producing the HP-85. With a 32-character wide CRT display, small built-in printer, cassette tape recorder, and keyboard, it sold for US$3250.

And before you criticize HP as an old dinosaur that couldn't recognize talent, don't forget that HP, like Apple, started in a garage:

The morning of December 6 dawned crisp and clear, defying earlier predictions of imminent rain. Sunlight sparkled on frosty lawns and the sky above the tiny 12x18 foot garage on Addison Avenue seemed especially blue.

CEO Mark Hurd hosted the founders’ families, HP employees — several of whom had worked for decades with Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard — Silicon Valley notables and historians. Even Apple Computer co-founder and HP alum Steve Wozniak came to pay homage to the humble garage in its restored glory.

In brief remarks of appreciation for those involved in bringing the preservation and rehabilitation efforts for the iconic garage and adjoining buildings to its completion, Mark appeared to respond in the way most folks do who stand before the spot where the founders began their work 66 years ago.

“It’s kind of a humbling thing,” he said....

Following the ribbon cutting and reception, the property transformed to the temporary site of tours that included the recreated three-room flat where Dave and Lucile shared the first years of their married life; Bill’s bachelor quarters — really little more than an un-insulated hut — and the preserved garage with a recreated workbench.

Anna Mancini, HP’s Corporate Archivist, made sure that the reconstructed tableaus in all three buildings contained the touchstones that conjure familiar refrains of Silicon Valley legends so often repeated nowadays — the oscillator on the mantel; an upright typewriter; Lucile’s stove with an oscillator panel suspended in the oven; Bill’s cot out back with a shirt hanging on a nail; and, of course, a drill press like the one Dave brought from Schenectady in the rumble seat of his car.

Uncool Phones

2006-03-17T12:33:00.000-08:00

I'm not the only one who recites the mantra I Am Not Trendy:

Looking for a cool, new cutting-edge mobile phone? This isn't the review series for you. Like many users, I wanted a phone that does a good job acting like a phone. Me, I can no longer afford "cool" -- I accidentally destroyed my last phone, didn't have insurance, and don't feel like shelling out big bucks for a hip, high-end model....

[T]here are two types of cheap cell phones: the bare-bones models that excel in the basics, such as the Nokia 2128i [see BW Online, 1/24/06, "Nokia's Bare Essentials 2128i"], and those that try to take on the nicer phones, often with little success.

The LG C2000, sadly, is among the latter. While it boasts a lot of extra features -- from an instant-messenger service to a built-in digital camera -- it hasn't mastered the task I most need: making calls. Voice quality is poor and battery life is short. In short, I'd look elsewhere....

While thrifty users willing to sacrifice other features to have a camera phone might pick this inexpensive option, I would stay away. For everybody else on Cingular, the Samsung X497 is a similar model with comparable features that gets the job done right.

Different Screen Resolutions for Different Audiences

2006-02-24T15:08:00.000-08:00

My Blogpatrol counter collects screen resolutions from the visitors to my Ontario Technoblog (which is, naturally, somewhat technically oriented) and my Ontario Empoblog (which is more general interest, provided you have some pretty strange interests). In comparing the data from the two blogs, it's interesting to note that screen resolutions skew a bit differently depending upon the audience.

First, here's the data from visitors to this blog:

1024x768 30
1280x1024 19
800x600 8
1400x1050 4
1280x800 4
1152x864 2
1680x1050 1
1366x768 1
1920x1200 1

Now, here the data from the Empoblog:

1024x768 942
800x600 246
1280x1024 206
1280x800 66
1152x864 56
1400x1050 29
1440x900 27
1280x768 20
1600x1200 17
1280x854 16

Despite the fact that the Technoblog has a lot of visitors interested in the iPAQ, resolutions tend to skew higher on the Technoblog - 1920x1200 visitors never read about Kiira Korpi, Tim Liotta, Christopher Nance, or Krystal Fernandez, and the Technolog has more 1280x1024 visitors than 800x600 visitors - on the Empoblog it's the other way around.

This is what one would expect, but it's interesting to see it confirmed (albeit only in a small sample).

Also interesting to know that the majority of visitors are 1024x768.

Thank YOU Take TWO

2006-02-08T08:51:00.000-08:00

Remember how Advanced Imaging solicited by free magazine renewal, then denied it?

I just received this e-mail:

From: Advanced Imaging Pro [mailto:circulation_mailings@advancedimagingmag.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2006 8:35 AM
To: [deleted]
Subject: Reminder to renew for 2006

To ensure future delivery of Cygnus - Advanced Imaging Pro e-mail promotions and newsletters to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders) please add our "From" address circulation_mailings@advancedimagingmag.com to your address book or e-mail whitelist.

Hello [deleted];

As the new year is off to a great start, it would be a good time to renew your subscription to Advanced Imaging for 2006.

If you renew today, you won't be asked to renew again until 2007!

You can renew your *free subscription just by clicking on the link below and completing the online form. It's that easy to
guarantee you don't miss a single issue for 2006.

[link deleted]

Thanks [deleted] for renewing your subscription to Advanced Imaging.

Regards,
A.Kelty
Audience Development Manager

*free to qualified subscribers in the industry

This email is being sent to [deleted].
Use this link to be deleted or to update your email address

You can choose to not receive further mailings by clicking on the link above. If you have trouble with this link, simply forward this message to [deleted] with [deleted] in the subject line. ReachMail does not tolerate spam. Please notify us via email at abuse@publishingdynamics.com regarding any spam issues. If you have trouble with any of these methods, you can reach us toll-free at 800-547-7377.

This message was sent by Cygnus - Advanced Imaging Pro using ReachMail. Read our Privacy Policy.

Cygnus Business Media
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3rd Floor
Beltsville, Maryland 20705

So I filled out the form again, and still didn't find a marketing category, and therefore clicked the "other" category. And again I received this message:

We appreciate your interest in Advanced Imaging magazine. Unfortunately, due to strict qualification requirements and independent audit regulations, we are unable to add your name to our complimentary subscription list. You can, however, be part of a growing number of industry professionals who read Advanced Imaging on a regular basis. Your subscription can help you take advantage of our comprehensive coverage of video, photographic, and document-based imaging technologies, products, systems, and services.

At this point I clicked the back button on my browser and stretched my qualifications a bit. I recategorized myself as "Engineering Management (including VP of Engineering, Senior, Principal, Chief or Managing Engineer & related personnel)." I guess I'm related personnel, since I provide requirements to engineers.

That did the trick. And I don't get irritating e-mail from them for a year. I guess I'd better take those in-house SOA classes.

Incidentally, once I passed this hurdle, I got to the question about whether I buy, specify, or approve purchase of particular products. It turns out that I do - I just don't report to the engineering VP, I report to the marketing VP.

Perhaps Advanced Imaging will track me down and cancel my subscription, but I again remind them - look what happened to Interex after they dissed the marketers.

Stress Testing

2006-02-04T15:39:00.000-08:00

In the process of helping my nephew diagnose a problem with running Rome: Total War on an Alienware computer, I've determined that I need to learn more about various computer diagnostic programs.

Alienware themselves recommended two programs:

Stress Prime 2004 by Johnny Lee. Based upon Prime 95 (which could use its own discussion, it appears), SP2004 provides various options for testing computer CPU and/or RAM.

3DMark03 from Futuremark. "The high quality game tests, image quality tests, sound tests and others give you an extremely accurate overview of your system’s current gaming performance."

Freewarehome.com links to some other diagnostic programs (which I have not tested):

Microsoft's Windows Memory Diagnostic can be used "to determine whether the problems are caused by failing hardware, such as RAM or the memory system of your motherboard."

The Freestone Group's Video Card Stability Test can also be used as a screensaver.

Jam Software offers HeavyLoad 2.0, which "is inteded to stress all resources of a PC (like CPU, RAM, harddisk, network, operating system, etc.) in order to test, if it will run reliable under heavy load."

If you have any favorite computer diagnostic programs (freeware/shareware, professional, or whatever), please post them in the comments.

And Jimmy Johnson's Hair Will Be Covered By A Standard Also

2006-02-03T12:29:00.000-08:00

Just to show how prevalent standards are becoming. Football great Emmitt Smith has worked with a national standards committee to promote standards for item authentication. This is over a year old, but still of interest. From the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Patrick Morris
(202) 626-5742 or pmorris@itic.org
NFL Great Emmitt Smith Teams with INCITS to Develop Item Authentication Standards
Interested Parties Welcome at January 12-13, 2005 Meeting

Washington, DC, January 10, 2005 - The InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) has established a new Technical Committee (INCITS/E22) - Item Authentication and announced the first meeting on January 12-13, 2005 at INCITS headquarters in Washington, DC. The proposal for a new technical committee was initiated by NFL star Emmitt Smith, whose work with Prova Group, Inc. on sports memorabilia authentication has led to his decision to pursue global item authentication standards.

As established by INCITS, the committee's work is intended to develop an international methodology and process for using RFID technology, multi-media technology and information technology to assist a wide variety of industries in the prevention of fraud. The goal of INCITS/E22's work is to develop standards to authenticate and validate a valued item, and establish an information technology recording and report structure for tracking and creating a valid chain of custody for each item entered into the IT structure.

Emmitt Smith commented on the positive response by INCITS and the initiation of a new Technical Committee: “Through my work with Prova, I have chosen RFID technology to guarantee that my authentic signature is protected from fraud and I have encouraged other athletes and celebrities to support the authentication of memorabilia. The next step in the process of significantly curbing the ever-growing gray market of fraudulent activity in sports memorabilia and other valuables and collectibles is to develop a formal information technology standard on item authentication. I thank INCITS for their willingness to coordinate this important work, encourage all interested parties to participate, and look forward to working with the INCITS technical committee.”...

About INCITS

The mission of the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) is to promote the effective use of Information and Communication Technology through standardization in a way that balances the interests of all stakeholders and increases the global competitiveness of the member organizations. INCITS serves as the U.S. Technical Advisory Group for ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1, which is
responsible for international standardization in the field of information technology.

INCITS and the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) are jointly accredited by, and operate under rules approved by, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). These rules are designed to ensure that voluntary standards are developed by the consensus of directly and materially affected interests. For further information, please contact INCITS, 1250 Eye St. NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20005 (www.incits.org).

###

Here's some more about Prova Group:

Prova Group, Inc. is a leading provider of authentication and information services to dealers and merchandisers of autographed sports memorabilia and other collectibles. Prova also provides state of the art inventory control and asset management solutions. Our patent-pending autograph and memorabilia authentication process confirms an item has a permanent and a unique identity that is captured using Radio Frequency Identification.

We have developed a system that provides history and ownership information for the entire life of the collectible item. By using our proprietary technology, Prova expects to improve the credibility of the collectibles industry and prevent fraudulent replicas from deceiving buyers and collectors.

Prova protects, identifies, and provides a verifiable chain of custody for any chosen asset.

The company is headquartered in Irving, Texas and has an office in St Louis, Missouri.

No, thank YOU

2006-02-01T12:02:00.000-08:00

This probably sounds like a whiny complaint, but isn't this what blogs are all about?

Other than the local newspaper, I just realized that I don't pay for a subscription to ANYTHING. Yet, due to the nature of my position, I have qualified to subscriptions to several technical magazines. I'm sure that you've qualified for some subscriptions also. Therefore, it's a surprise when something like this happens.

I was offered a free subscription to Advanced Imaging some time ago. As is true with such things, you occasionally have to requalify. So I got this in the mail:

ADVANCED
IMAGING

HOW MANY
TIMES
DO I NEED TO FILL THIS OUT?

Only once - If you respond now!

Renew online at www.advancedimagingpro.com

So I dutifully went to the website to renew, entered my subscriber number, my last name, and the bold red PRIORITY CODE that they sent me. After confirming my information and providing information on my position, I got the following message:

We appreciate your interest in Advanced Imaging magazine. Unfortunately, due to strict qualification requirements and independent audit regulations, we are unable to add your name to our complimentary subscription list. You can, however, be part of a growing number of industry professionals who read Advanced Imaging on a regular basis. Your subscription can help you take advantage of our comprehensive coverage of video, photographic, and document-based imaging technologies, products, systems, and services.

So why, after even entering the oh-so-holy PRIORITY CODE, was I unable to renew my free subscription? Probably due to the job category that I entered - "Other."

Why did I choose this category? Because...shudder...I'm in marketing.

And Advanced Imaging, like Interex before it, markets to the techies rather than the marketers. But remember what happened to Interex.

It's a common belief that technical magazines should market services to technical personnel:

Leading technical magazines deliver solutions to the IT managers, architects and developers creating the next generation of business applications—the best way to market to these key influences.

The theory, of course, is that the technical folks will recommend, and the non-technical folks will immediately agree. Here's a fictionalized conversation between Albert Wozniak and Bob Kawasaki:

ALBERT (adjusting his pocket protector): Hey Bob!

BOB (putting down his "Visualizing E-Commerce Paradigms" book): Yes, Albert?

ALBERT: We need to buy an SOA-compliant E-Widget from Megacorp. They were interviewed by Interex Magazine and are highly recommended.

BOB: OK. Because I have been hired into a marketing position rather than an engineering position, I trust you completely and will not apply my critical thinking to this purchase.

What this means is that the marketing director at Interex Magazine would not qualify for a subscription to his/her own magazine, which is interesting....

[OE UPDATE 8 FEBRUARY - I got my subscription]

Stay the course in Massachusetts, despite Peter Quinn's departure

2006-01-24T12:16:00.000-08:00

Really old news from Consortiuminfo.org:

January 3, 2006

MA Secretary Trimarco Confirms Administration Support for ODF

Only a few blog entries ago it was my sad lot to report that Massachusetts CIO Peter Quinn had resigned, leaving the fate of his effort to mandate use of the OpenDocument format (ODF) hanging in the air. Tonight, I'm pleased to report, definitively (and exclusively), that the Massachusetts administration has confirmed that it will stand not only by open format standards in general (as earlier reported in the press), but behind ODF specifically as well....

[W]hen both State Senator Pacheco and Microsoft began to oppose adoption of ODF, Governor Romney had sought to distance himself from the specifics of Quinn's policy ("Our state decided on OpenDocument in the future, but we're giving it time to be implemented ... it didn't come from me, but from our technology people who came to me ").

Similarly, ODF opponent and Secretary of the Commonwealth William Francis Galvin gave a warm welcome to news that Microsoft would submit its XML Reference Schema to Ecma for adoption as a standard....

After news of Quinn's resignation first became public here and at Groklaw, the Boston Globe quoted Eric Fehrnstrom, communications director with Governor Mitt Romney’s office, as stating simply,''We are moving steadily towards [the January 1, 2007] deadline and we expect no changes in [the ITD's} rules." Similarly, Julie Teer, Press Secretary to the Governor, sent an email to Washington Technology's Ethan Butterfield, (apparently) stating only that "The administration is not backing away from moving toward open format software."

But tonight, I'm happy to report that the official who has direct authority over the implementation of the open format policy, Massachusetts Secretary of Administration and Finance Thomas H. Trimarco, met with ITD General Counsel Linda Hamel earlier today, and unequivocally assured her that Peter Quinn's departure "will result in no change to the Administration's position on the ODF standard."

Trimarco is the successor to Eric Kriss, who was Peter Quinn's boss throughout most of the process during which the open format process was developed, debated, and finally approved. And he will be the official to whom Peter Quinn's successor will report between now and the effective date of the open format policy.

Secretary Trimarco also confirmed to Ms. Hamel that Peter Quinn left his post voluntarily, at least in the official sense (I say "formal" because Peter's farewell email indicates that the distinction between actual termination and his ability to properly do his job in the face of other types of action may have been a slim one)....

US pays to make open source safer

2006-01-24T12:14:00.000-08:00

From vnunet.com:

Open-source software may become more attractive to enterprises, after the US government last week pledged over $1m funding to help root out bugs in projects such as Linux, Mozilla and Apache.

Stanford University, Symantec and source-code testing company Coverity have all been signed up by the US Department of Homeland Security to trawl through open-source code and seek out bugs.

The $1m grant will be released over three years. A key element of the project is to improve the existing Coverity Prevent Linux code-testing tool, increasing the number of projects it supports to over 40 and creating a database of bugs for developers to view. Meanwhile, Symantec is on board to test the scanning tools.

From news.com:

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is extending the scope of its protection to open-source software.

Through its Science and Technology Directorate, the department has given $1.24 million in funding to Stanford University, Coverity and Symantec to hunt for security bugs in open-source software and to improve Coverity's commercial tool for source code analysis, representatives for the three grant recipients told CNET News.com.

The Homeland Security Department grant will be paid over a three-year period, with $841,276 going to Stanford, $297,000 to Coverity and $100,000 to Symantec, according to San Francisco-based technology provider Coverity....

List of open-source software to be analyzed in the Department of Homeland Security-sponsored project.

Abiword
Apache
BerkeleyDB
Bind
Ethereal
Firebird
Firefox
FreeBSD
Gaim
Gimp
Gtk+
Icecast
Inetutils
KDE
Linux
Mplayer
MySQL
OpenBSD
OpenLDAP
OpenSSH
OpenSSL
OpenVPN
Proftpd
QT
Samba
Squid
TCL
TK
wxGtk
Xine
Xmms
Xpdf

Where was Tim?

2006-01-23T23:11:00.000-08:00

Where's Tim has a new feature, described here. Enter a date (e.g. 12/25/05), and you can see all the places that Tim visited on that date. Promising application.

More on HP rx1950/rx1955 Windows Mobile 5 soft reset sync issue

2006-01-20T16:59:00.000-08:00

More threads on this issue:

http://mobilitytoday.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9911

http://www.metareview.com/product-hp-ipaq-rx1955-pocket-pc/B000AR95EA

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000AR95EA/103-5678667-4896621

From Amazon:

Power/SD problem Fixed!, January 19, 2006
Reviewer: jpr (CO, USA)

There is a firmware update for the iPAQ rx1950/1955 that fixes the power on problem when using an SD card. If you go to hp.com, pick Software & Driver Downloads, then type in the product name and continue, then pick Windows Mobile 5.0, you'll see a list of updates for the unit. Right now there is an (OS) ROM update, and a firmware update. The firmware update is the one that fixes this problem, but if you are planning to load the OS/ROM update as well, load that one first, then load the Firmware update. You should always back up all your data before applying an update.
I also had a similar problem when I didn't have the battery cover on and latched just right, but that's OK now too, as long as I don't drop the thing on the ground.

The information on the firmware update is at http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/HandheldiPAQ/us/download/23210.html:

Restores the ability to Power On the handheld after it becomes locked in Standby mode with an SD Card inserted in the handheld. When the handheld is in this locked state, it does not Power On with the Power button and the battery may become discharged.

Tangentialism Run Amok

2006-01-06T12:34:00.000-08:00

Whoops:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is shutting down the system that creates movie recommendations on its shopping Web site....

The world's largest retailer said the software that generates links for shoppers from one movie to others of similar interest would be shut down. All cross references would be removed as soon as technically possible until the system can be fixed, Wal-Mart said.

Bill Wertz, a spokesman for the Bentonville, Ark.-based company, said it wasn't yet clear how or when the technical problem arose. "We're still looking into it," he said....

Walmart.com's item mapping process does not work correctly and at this point is mapping seemingly random combinations of titles. We were horrified to discover that some hurtful and offensive combinations are being mapped together," she said, adding that the company was "deeply sorry that this happened."

So what were the links?

"[T]he site is...mapping movies such as `Home Alone' and `Power Puff Girls' to African-American-themed DVDs," Williams said.

A documentary about surfers, "Riding Giants," links to the same list of seemingly unrelated fantasy films as the King biopic, including "Polar Express" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

But that isn't what shut the system down:

[I]t linked a "Planet of the Apes" DVD to films about famous black Americans, including Martin Luther King Jr.

Wal-Mart said Thursday it had removed what it called the "offensive combinations" from a walmart.com page advertising a boxed DVD set, "Planet of the Apes: The Complete TV Series."

Under a "similar items" section, the DVD set's page linked shoppers to four films about the lives of King, actress Dorothy Dandridge, boxer Jack Johnson and singer Tina Turner. Wal-Mart later altered the page to link with television show DVDs....

Wal-Mart moved swiftly after a link to the page for "Planet of the Apes" began circulating on the Internet.

Here's an October 20, 2005 post by San Diego Johnny:

Is Somebody at Walmart.com a Racist?

As a science fiction fan and owner of a satellite dish with a DVR, I often look at the upcoming shows for something to record. I found out that the Sci-Fi Channel usually plays episodes of the same science fiction series from 8 am to 4 pm Eastern time a few months ago. I've recorded episodes of...the little remembered 1974 television series adaptation of Planet of the Apes. I decided to try to see if one of my favorite sites for its great prices and service, Walmart.com, had the series available on DVD. When I searched for "Planet of the Apes" in the search area of the site, I was presented with three choices. The DVD set I was hoping for, a compilation of the Planet of the Apes movies and the unfortunate Tim Burton 2001 Re-make (known by some as "Aperaham Lincoln" for its ending). When I clicked on the television series DVD I was given choices of similar items to choose at the right of the screen....

At first I thought, "oh, 'Introducing Dorothy Dandridge', maybe Roddy McDowell or one of the other actors was in this HBO Movie. That turned out not to be the case.
As I looked farther down the list, also "similar" supposedly is a documentary on the life and death of Martin Luther King, the arrow and hot link say that there are more items below....

Unforgiveable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson," a documentary on the first African-American heavyweight champion and "What's Love Got to Do With It?", a Tina Turner biopic, which are both apparently also similar to "Planet of the Apes."

In our nation's history and even to this day"yard apes" along with the equally offensive "porch monkey" are derogatory terms for black Americans and racists since the slavery days have attempted to sub-humanize slaves by comparing them to apes and monkeys. I am not the first one who will yell "racism!" when being given a set of circumstances to examine. As a matter of fact, I think at times that "the race card" is used too much in our society by such people as Jesse Jackson to perform shakedowns on individuals and corporations. In this case however given how different these items are, with their only link being that they are about black Americans and I have to wonder if a malicious coder or someone working at Walmart.com somehow linked these items together with the "Planet of the Apes." Given the history of racism and the civil rights struggle in our nation and especially in the South, where Walmart is headquartered, one would think that a multi-national concern like Walmart would be more cognizant about it's website and its content.

Gadgets, gadgets, gadgets (repeat 47 more times)

2006-01-06T12:29:00.000-08:00

PC World has published its "official (and entirely idiosyncratic) list of the top tech gadgets of the last half century." They used the following criteria:

The rules? The devices had to be relatively small (no cars or big-screen TVs, for example), and we considered only those items whose digital descendants are covered in PC World (cameras, yes; blenders, no). We rated each gadget on its usefulness, design, degree of innovation, and influence on subsequent gadgets, as well as the ineffable quality we called the "cool factor."

Rather than listing all 50, I'm just going to list the top 40. I realize that this is a musical reference, and that God may strike me down like He struck down Dick Clark, but I'm doing it anyway. Here are the top 40:

Sony Walkman TPS-L2 (1979)
Apple iPod (2001)
(Tie) ReplayTV RTV2001 and TiVo HDR110 (1999)
PalmPilot 1000 (1996)
Sony CDP-101 (1982)
Motorola StarTAC (1996)
Atari Video Computer System (1977)
Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera (1972)
M-Systems DiskOnKey (2000)
Regency TR-1 (1954)
Sony PlayStation 2 (2000)
Motorola Razr V3 (2004)
Motorola PageWriter (1996)
BlackBerry 850 Wireless Handheld (1998)
Phonemate Model 400 (1971)
Texas Instruments Speak & Spell (1978)
Texas Instruments SR-10 (1973)
Diamond Multimedia Rio PMP300 (1998)
Sony Handycam DCR-VX1000 (1995)
Handspring Treo 600 (2003)
Zenith Space Command (1956)
Hamilton Pulsar (1972)
Kodak Instamatic 100 (1963)
MITS Altair 8800 (1975)
Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100 (1983)
Nintendo Game Boy (1989)
Commodore 64 (1982)
Apple Newton MessagePad (1994)
Sony Betamax (1975)
Sanyo SCP-5300 (2002)
iRobot Roomba Intelligent Floorvac (2002)
Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer (1999)
Franklin Rolodex Electronics REX PC Companion (1997)
Lego Mindstorms Robotics Invention System 1.0 (1998)
Motorola DynaTAC 8000X (1983)
Iomega Zip Drive (1995)
Magnavox Magnavision Model 8000 DiscoVision Videodisc Player (1978)
Milton Bradley Simon (1978)
Play, Inc. Snappy Video Snapshot (1996)
Connectix QuickCam (1994)

Let's look at item 24:

It sported blinking lights and toggle switches, and you assembled it yourself from a $397 kit sold by an Albuquerque mail-order company that had formerly been in the model rocket business. The Altair was, in other words, a gadget, but it was also the first popular home computer. Not very useful at first, it soon inspired an entire industry of upgrades, peripherals, and software--and prompted computer geeks Bill Gates and Paul Allen to form a company to sell a version of the BASIC programming language. (They called their startup Micro-soft, later ditching the hyphen.) Also present at the creation: MITS documentation manager David Bunnell, who went on to found a bevy of successful computer magazines, including PC World.

PCWorld links to a UC Davis web page:

Considered by many to be the first microcomputer, the MITS altair 8800 was based on a 2 MHz Intel 8080 with 256 bytes standard RAM and interfaced with the user through the octal front panel switches....

From Landmarks In Digital Computing: A Smithsonian Pictorial History:

Hobbyists who successfully put together their Altairs ended up with a blue, box-shaped machine that measured 17x18x7 inches. To enter programs or data, one set the toggle switches on the front. There was no keyboard, video terminal or paper tape reader. All programming was in the machine code of binary digits. The first Altairs came with only 256 bytes of memory; they also lacked output devices such as printers. Results of a program were indicated by the pattern of flashing lights on the front panel.

The UC Davis page links to The Virtual Altair Museum. Here's an excerpt from an old article on MITS and Ed Roberts:

Leslie (Les) Solomon was the Technical Editor for Popular Electronics during the summer of '74 and he was looking for a good computer article and project to print....Ed Roberts was one of "Uncle Sol's" writing contributors. A man who loved to fool with gadgets and electronics, Roberts started a small electronics company in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1968. MITS (Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems) mostly sold radio transmitters for model airplanes through the mail. But, by the early 70's, MITS was selling calculator kits and doing fairly well. At the end of 1973, the calculator market changed drastically, other companies were selling fully assembled calculators for below $50, while Roberts' kits were $99.95. He had to think of something quick or go broke. He had toyed with the idea of developing a computer kit before, but never followed up on it. Now, he decided to go for broke. If this didn't work, then he would just close up shop. Roberts decided on the Intel 8080 chip for his project, rejecting the older 8008 and new Motorola 6800. He was able to get an excellent deal on the chip in volume - $75 a piece for a $360 chip! By mid-1974, Solomon had decided on supporting Roberts' article and kit. He staked the reputation of PE on the expertise of MITS. In July 1974, Radio Electronics had published an article on a 8008 based computer kit called the "Mark-8". Les Solomon needed an 8080 based project to beat out RE....The Altair kit appeared on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics. In kit form, MITS offered the basic model with 256 bytes of RAM, standard binary switches and LEDs on the front panel and power supply for $400. Hoping to sell around 200 kits, Ed Roberts and MITS were overwhelmed to receive thousands of pre-payed orders. Electronic hobbiests were willing to have paid the $360 just for the chip itself, so why not get an entire computer for $400? It took MITS almost a year to catch up the orders. Over 10,000 Altairs were sold by MITS. The Altair was the first commercially successful computer ever. It started the personal computer revolution which has since consumed our planet.

Wireless Wide Area Networks (WWAN) and Lenovo and Cingular

2006-01-04T15:09:00.000-08:00

Now that I have my wi-fi device, I have confirmed my non-trendiness by using old wi-fi technology. (And I still talk about LPs. Groovy.)

From Internet News:

Wi-Fi is so 2005.

Lenovo said it joined Cingular to expand the connectivity options for mobile notebook computer users. Upcoming versions of Lenovo's ThinkPad notebook line will integrate wireless wide area network (WWAN) technology from Cingular providing high-speed Internet access to Cingular's BroadbandConnect service without a separate PC card or additional hardware.

The first of the new WWAN-enabled ThinkPads are expected in March.

BroadBandConnect represents a huge increase over Wi-Fi connection speeds. The companies say they will be able to deliver average mobile data connections between 400Kbps and 700Kbps on the downlink and bursts to more than a megabit per second using Cingular's 3G network....

The high speed service was just launched last month. In addition to higher speeds, BroadbandConnect means Cingular subscribers won't have to rely on being near a wireless hub or Wi-Fi hot spots.

But BroadbandConnect access is hardly ubiquitous. In the U.S., BroadbandConnect is available in 52 communities, including such cities as Boston, Chicago, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington D.C., Las Vegas, Nev., and Austin, Texas.

Cingular said it's committed to extending the service to most major markets by the end of this year.

Revisiting White Light Generator

2006-01-04T11:58:00.000-08:00

At starshipbuilder.com, thomas7g has not only linked to my October post regarding Michael Bowers' research that resulted in white light-emitting quantum dots, but has also linked to a National Geographic article on the topic. Here's an excerpt:

The lightbulbs in your home are still very similar to the ones first invented by Thomas Edison over a century ago.

An incandescent bulb is a glass tube filled with a non-reactive gas that contains a thin metal filament. When electric current runs through the filament, the atoms within the filament vibrate, causing it to emit both light and lots of heat.

The heat is wasted energy. Researchers have long anticipated that LEDs, found in everything from digital clocks to car dashboards, could replace lightbulbs.

LEDs use a greater proportion of the electricity flowing through them, so they emit less heat. In fact, LEDs are cool to the touch.

This translates into savings for consumers. Widespread adoption of LEDs could cut U.S. consumption of electricity for lighting by 29 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

And unlike fragile glass bulbs, LEDS are made from sturdy wafers of semiconducting materials. An LED can last up to 50,000 hours—50 times as long as a 60-watt bulb.

But creating white-light LEDs has been problematic....

However, only The Spoof reports what happened (?) next:

Having "accidentally" discovered the light bulb of the future on his first try, Vanderbilt graduate student Michael Bowers tried an additional 1300 ways to construct his breakthrough "bulb" which consists of a blue LED coated with "microdots." "My engineering advisor always quoted Edison's statement that "Invention was 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration. I happened to get the inspiration part first, I guess."

To avoid "shortchanging" engineers world-wide, and making a fool out of Edison, who really should have given up after a couple hundred failures, Bowers was forced by Vanderbilt professors to try making his microdots bigger, smaller, coating them on regular light bulbs, halogen headlights, Maglites, even fireflies, which he dipped into epoxy and rolled around in the dots....

Truth to tell, Bowers wasn't working in a vacuum (that's another scientific endeavor). Here's what Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was saying in 2000:

Physicist Howard Lee and his team of Laboratory and University of California at Davis researchers have been exploring [quantum dots], which are about a single nanometer (a billionth of a meter) in size and made out of material such as silicon. Lee explains, "Imagine taking a wafer of silicon and cutting it in half again and again and again, until you have a piece containing about a hundred to a thousand atoms. That's the size we're looking at."

The small size results in new quantum phenomena that yield some extraordinary bonuses. Material properties change dramatically because quantum effects arise from the confinement of electrons and "holes" in the material (a hole is the absence of an electron; the hole behaves as though it were a positively charged particle). Size changes other material properties such as the electrical and nonlinear optical properties of a material, making them very different from those of the material's bulk form. If a dot is excited, the smaller the dot, the higher the energy and intensity of its emitted light. Hence, these very small, semiconducting quantum dots are gateways to an enormous array of possible applications and new technologies....

Another future use for quantum-dot LEDs is to emit white light for uses in laptop computers or as internal lighting for buildings or cars. Lee and his team have discovered they can-by controlling the amount of blue in the emission-control the "flavor" or "tone" of the white light as well....

And here's what Sandia National Laboratories said in 2003:

In a different approach to creating white light several researchers at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Sandia National Laboratories have developed the first solid-state white light-emitting device using quantum dots. In the future, the use of quantum dots as light-emitting phosphors may represent a major application of nanotechnology.

“Understanding the physics of luminescence at the nanoscale and applying this knowledge to develop quantum dot-based light sources is the focus of this work,” says Lauren Rohwer, principal investigator. “Highly efficient, low-cost quantum dot-based lighting would represent a revolution in lighting technology through nanoscience.”

Power to the People (WM5 Axim and HP rx1955 PDA SD)

2005-12-30T21:41:00.000-08:00

Remember my list for Santa? Well, I got my Hewlett Packard rx1955, and a 1 GB SD card to go with it (to hold my WMA files), and was having all sorts of fun...until I couldn't get the unit turned on again. A soft reset did the trick, but was somewhat irritating.

After returning from an out-of-town trip, I figured I'd research this issue to see if I was the only one with an HP rx1955 power-up problem. I wasn't. The problem has apparently existed since the rx1955 was released in October, has been found in non-HP devices running Windows Mobile 5, and there apparently isn't a solution yet. Here are some excerpts from an HP forum (I've only posted a few excerpts - there are almost 200 posts in the thread):

Kevin Weeks
Oct 20, 2005 18:44:13 GMT

I just purchase two iPAQ rx1950's. After they're off for a few hours, we can't turn them back on using the power button. We have to do a soft reset for them to power back on. They seem to both work fine for a few hours, we turn them off and then it happens again and we have to reset. Is there a setting I'm missing that can alleviate this annoying little problem? Thanks in advance.

-------

Peter Oct 26, 2005 16:18:34 GMT Unassigned

I have this problem as well, hadn't seen it before but I left it off last night with SD Card in and recharging and it wouldn't turn on again without a reset. Before this, I'd had it for about a week with no problems - though it was mostly hooked up to a online computer overnight and before I turned it on every other day.

Peter

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Melissa Oct 26, 2005 18:55:54 GMT Unassigned

I just recently bought the HP IPAQ RX1955. The problem I am having is that sometimes when I go to turn on my IPAQ it won't turn on, so I need to do a soft restart. I already called HP on this problem and they said this shouldn't be happening. Well I returned it to the store and got another one and now the same problem is occuring again.

I already went into settings and checked off the setting to disable all buttons except the start button when in standby mode and that doesn't seem to help.

I called HP again yesterday regarding this problem and they told me it might be because I have programs running so I went into settings, system tab and then clicked on memory and then went to the tab running programs and click stopped all. Well that doesnt work either. The problem still occured.

I was speaking to others with the same problem and also someone that had the same problem with the 2750 and his suggestion to me was that I take the card out of the ipaq overnight and have it charge. Well that seemed to work and I had no more problems well then I put the card in today and when I checked it after a couple of hours I had the same problem. I did a soft reset and then took the card out and now I am fine. So I think it has something to do with the card being in the ipaq.

Does anyone else seem to have this problem and if so do you know if hp will have a update regarding this or any ideas to resolve my problem.

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Nelson Fernandez Nov 16, 2005 15:13:17 GMT Unassigned

it's not just us...

http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=100190

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Andy Prior Nov 30, 2005 17:39:41 GMT Unassigned

Based on lots of reading about all the models (HP and Dell) that seem to have this kind of issue - the SD card and the ActiveSync problems... My guess is the issue is rooted in the Windows Mobile 5 interrupt model... Something is blocking or not firing when it should. Given that, I'm willing to wait until Christmas... They start screwing with the threading model and don't test enough we will end up with a unit in which the SD card will work but your friggin notifications of tasks/appointments will not fire correctly or THEY will hang the system.
Here's to hoping the ROM fix is a Christmas present!

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Ahmed Kamel Dec 6, 2005 13:34:04 GMT Unassigned

Tried to install the driver. At first it seamed to help. Was hoping for a miracle. But alas, Microsoft Strikes Back... For those who have not read the entire thread, this appears to be a WM5 and Active Sync issue. This is not just limited to HP pocket PCs. Add to this the great idea of removing the ability to sync to your PC over the LAN or WiFi, Microsoft has a real winner here. Thank You Uncle Bill... If anyone is reading this at HP, units are being returned left and right. Your losing sales and its costing you a painful amount of money in lost revenues and returns. Fix or demand that this be fixed immediately, and come on guys.. put WiFi sync back in. That's just nuts.

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Shaun Goudy Dec 7, 2005 08:39:19 GMT Unassigned

Tried all the suggestions listed here and having some luck, it worked for 10hrs with no problems. Seems that no matter what you do you must remove the SD card if your going to leave the Ipaq off for several hours and not on charge.

Spoke to Hp today and the guy said, "yes, there is a problem". He then said,"if you leave an SD card in ANY ipaq it will drain the battery. This has been known since the Ipaq's first came out." When i asked why there was nothing in the manual he came up with, "they don't come with an SD card so the instructions are not included in the manual". Apparently it's up to the SD makers to tell you that you must not leave a card in an Ipaq.

I thought that i'd try my luck one last time and see if he knew when a fix for this problem, which is not really a problem according to him, would come out. Sometime, he said.

What a joke....It basically came down to this. Yes there is a problem, but it's not a problem and the fix for the problem, which is not really a problem, will come out...evetually.

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Donald Heinkel Dec 11, 2005 08:42:30 GMT Unassigned

Joining the thread, hope I can be of some help

I have experienced the same power-related problems that everyone else has reported and have gotten the same replies that everyone else has gotten in terms of calling HP. HP didn't provide me with a date for the patch but told me that it was a known issue and one was coming.

My HP PDA experience is fairly robust as I do all the IT purchasing for my company as we have a number of HP handhelds. I can report that the bug seems to be limited to the Microsoft WM5 operating system. The HP HX2410 with WinCe 2003, that I bought in August 05, doesn't have these problems.

Having now seen the breadth of the fall-out, I have to report that I am preparing to return the 1955 and buy something with the more stable WinCe 2003 OS. New is apparently not better on this occasion. I've very disappointed, but while I am within the timeframe where I can return the unit, you can bet that I am going to rather than live with this and hope that HP or MS gets to it sooner or later. The struggle will be to find a retailer who has a unit that isn't so new that it has WM5.

The thread also includes a number of temporary fixes, some of which didn't turn out to be fixes at all. As you can guess, the one fix that does seem to work is "take out the SD card."

I thought I'd peek at the Dell thread referenced by Nelson Fernandez on November 16. Here's some excerpts from that forum:

10-04-05, 03:27 PM #1

rbg08
Aximsite Major League

X51 not turning on

I wanted to see if this was a problem with all new X51's, or what percentage was experiencing this problem: Sometimes the X51 won't turn on when the power button is pressed, even though the lock switch is not locked.
__________________
Who needs drugs--I have an Axim!

Current setup:
Dell Axim X51v (WM5.0, Hardware Rev. A00, ROM Ver. A04), Vaja Vitelino Green Moss leather case, Boxwave ClearTouch Crystal screen protector, Boxwave Styra stylus, Lexar 1 GB 80x CF, PNY 512 MB SD, Boxwave miniBuds headphones, extra 1100 mAh battery

Previous devices:
Dell Axim X5 Advanced (PPC2002 upgraded to WM2003)
Toshiba e310 (PPC2002)

Last edited by rbg08 : 10-04-05 at 03:29 PM.

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10-12-05, 09:27 PM #10

ctitanic
Aximsite All Star

Guys since I applied this hack http://www.tweaks2k2.com/portal/for...6&fromblock=yes
I have not suffered again from this issue. I applied this hack trying to fix the disappearing of my SD card but now I have noticed that I don't have any more this problem. Question to all that reported to have this problem: Do they have a SD Card plugged in the device?
__________________
http://www.Tweaks2K2.com
Home of Tweaks2K2 and more...
Blog: http://x51v.blogspot.com
Tweaks2K2 at 33% OFF for Axim Users

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12-28-05, 06:03 PM #426

ShakeyCan
Aximsite Prospect

I've joined this club!

Received my new X51V a few weeks ago. Upgraded the ROM to A04 straight away. Very impressed by the screen and the speed. Received a free 1Gb CF card from Dell so very happy. The next day the troubles started. Wouldn't power on - very strange. Turns out the battery was flat! Hmmm - must have been me. I've had this a couple of times now (including disappearing CF card). The major problem appears to be the battery just completely draining when in suspend. I've read through all these forums and many others and there appears to be a number of "fixes", depending on your device. I haven't sussed it out yet, but I will see how it goes with setting all the AS to manual first. Leaving BT on or popping out the CF card aren't good options IMHO. The other one is to try and power it right down (hold down power button option) and see what happens, but really not a good option either. I've seen theories about it drainign quicker below about 80% charge. Last night mine drained from 100% to zero overnight in suspend mode (lock key on as well). I've had the device on all day with WiFi syncing every 5 mins and it ran fine for about 5 hours before getting below 10% so I don't think this is the case. I'll let you know how Igo.

Well, I figured I'd search Microsoft's knowledge base for Windows Mobile 5. Except that they don't have a knowledge base for Windows Mobile 5. Here are the results of my search of the Windows CE 5.0 knowledge base for "power SD":

There are no documents that match your search for "power SD"

I performed a blog search, and ran into this item from David Sayed:

We all knew that around the corner there would be phones and other devices that natively run Windows Mobile 5 and now the wait is owner. I've been playing with two: the HTC Universal (aka i-mate JasJar) and HTC Tornado (aka i-mate SP5). This entry will focus on the SP5....

Physically the device is nice. It is the right size (not much larger than the SP3i or a Sony Ericsson T610) and just right for a phone. There are plenty of genuinely useful keys: one that brings up the Comm Manager menu (turn on or off Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, IR and start a sync). I've heard complaints about the power button, but am finding it fine....

Onboard memory isn't very generous at just 64MB ROM and 64MB RAM. Once you've synced email, appointments and have loaded a few programs, you're done. So that's where the memory expansion through a mini-SD card comes in. This card is located under the battery, so I will be shopping for a 1GB mini-SD card (less than $100) and will try to store email and programs on it....

Wonder how the power button will work after the SD card is installed? Perhaps it will; one post claims that this only happens to some Windows Mobile 5 devices:

There have been several posts in various forums about Windows Mobile 5 devices needing a soft reset to turn on. I know this isn't a WM5 issue in particular because it isn't all devices. Neither my K-Jam or JasJar have this problem. I have heard it reported about some Dell and HP devices though. Have you experienced this?

Yes I have...

Carmi Levy on Picking Blackberries

2005-12-22T22:43:00.000-08:00

Carmi Levy has issued a press release:

U.S. Patent Office Ruling Frees Wireless Sector, Signals End of Frivolous Lawsuits, says Info-Tech Research Group

LONDON, ON, Dec. 21 /PRNewswire/ - Info-Tech Research Group, the leading
IT analyst firm for mid-sized companies, says that the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office's rejection of the five patents that are at the heart of a
lawsuit that has threatened to shut down Research In Motion's BlackBerry
service will once again return wide-open competition to the wireless e-mail
market.
"The USPTO announcement sends two strong messages to the wireless
market," says Info-Tech analyst Carmi Levy. "The first is that predictions of
BlackBerry's imminent demise were highly premature and unnecessarily
inflammatory. The second is that life will get tougher on companies whose
business model consists of using patents to sue successful vendors instead of
competing for clients and markets."
If this ruling holds, NTP would have no basis for further action against
RIM. This could impact the pending U.S. District Court case in Virginia.
Judge James Spencer had earlier ordered both sides to hammer out a settlement
that could have seen RIM pay NTP upwards of $1 billion in damages.
"This ruling pulls the rug out from under NTP's court case, " says Levy.
"The rejection of all five patent claims takes the wind out of NTP's sails."
This case was widely viewed as a precedent for future litigation in this
space. Within the last month, Visto has sued Microsoft for violating its
mobile e-mail patents, while Inpro has initiated proceedings against RIM in
British court for intellectual property violations.
"If the original NTP/RIM lawsuit is ultimately tossed out of court,
other cases that were riding on NTP's coattails will have less chance of
success," says Levy. "The end of litigious frivolity could be upon us."

About Info-Tech Research Group
With a paid membership of over 25,000 worldwide, Info-Tech Research Group
is the global leader in providing information technology research and analysis
to the mid-sized enterprise market. It is North America's fastest growing
full-service IT analyst firm.

Carmi Levy is available for interviews at (888) 670-8889 or via e-mail at
clevy@infotech.com.

SOURCE Info-Tech Research Group

NexID Biometrics (or, how to get the New York Times to announce the establishment of your company)

2005-12-21T12:03:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, articles began appearing that talked about how fingerprint reading devices can be spoofed. Here's an example:

Clarkson University Engineer Outwits High-Tech Fingerprint Fraud

By: Clarkson University
Published: Dec 10, 2005 at 07:45

...Biometrics is the science of using biological properties, such as fingerprints, an iris scan, or voice recognition, to identify individuals. And in a world of growing terrorism concerns and increasing security measures, the field of biometrics is rapidly expanding.

"Biometric systems automatically measure the unique physiological or behavioral ‘signature' of an individual, from which a decision can be made to either authenticate or determine that individual's identity," explained Stephanie C. Schuckers, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Clarkson University. "Today, biometric systems are popping up everywhere – in places like hospitals, banks, even college residence halls – to authorize or deny access to medical files, financial accounts, or restricted or private areas."

"And as with any identification or security system," Schuckers adds, "biometric devices are prone to ‘spoofing' or attacks designed to defeat them."

Spoofing is the process by which individuals overcome a system through an introduction of a fake sample. "Digits from cadavers and fake fingers molded from plastic, or even something as simple as Play-Doh or gelatin, can potentially be misread as authentic," she explains. "My research addresses these deficiencies and investigates ways to design effective safeguards and vulnerability countermeasures. The goal is to make the authentication process as accurate and reliable as possible."...

"Since liveness detection is based on the recognition of physiological activities as signs of life, we hypothesized that fingerprint images from live fingers would show a specific changing moisture pattern due to perspiration but cadaver and spoof fingerprint images would not."

In live fingers, perspiration starts around the pore, and spreads along the ridges, creating a distinct signature of the process. Schuckers and her research team designed a computer algorithm that would detect this pattern when reading a fingerprint image. With the new detection system integrated into the device, less than 10 percent of the spoofed samples were able to fool the machine....

These and similar articles got a lot of airplay throughout the media, most of whom reported what had already been reported. But the New York Times added some information that I hadn't seen before (emphasis mine):

In a study, researchers at Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y., tested 66 fake fingers to see if they could outwit biometric devices, which identify individuals based on the physiological properties of their fingerprints or other body parts. The fake fingers went undetected more than half the time.

"Even if it comes from Play-Doh, the scanner has no way of knowing that. It is just taking a picture of an image," said Stephanie C. Schuckers, a Clarkson electrical and computer engineering professor who helped lead the research. "People in the industry are aware this is an issue."

The results, published this year in the IEEE: Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics journal, highlight a potentially huge vulnerability....

Dr. Schuckers hopes to introduce new technology that can detect pore perspiration patterns to prevent the biometric devices from being fooled. She has started a company, NexID Biometrics, to start licensing it next year.

The referenced study is as follows:

Time-series detection of perspiration as a liveness test in fingerprint devices

Parthasaradhi, S.T.V. Derakhshani, R. Hornak, L.A. Schuckers, S.A.C.
Bioscrypt, Inc., Markham, Ont., Canada

This paper appears in: Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Part C, IEEE Transactions on
Publication Date: Aug. 2005
Volume: 35 , Issue: 3
On page(s): 335 - 343
ISSN: 1094-6977
INSPEC Accession Number:8507021
Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/TSMCC.2005.848192
Posted online: 2005-07-25 08:17:26.0

The NexID Biometrics web site is at www.nexidbiometrics.com. According to various pages on the website:

NexID Biometrics, LLC, was formed in December 2005 by four partners, Bojan Cukic, Lawrence Hornak, Michael Schuckers, and Stephanie Schuckers. Through their collaborations over eight years, the team has extensive expertise in the biometric field, in addition to being experts in related areas of computer science, electrical engineering, statistics, and biomedical engineering....

Recent reports, corroborated by research, have demonstrated that biometric devices can be spoofed by fairly straightforward means. Several methods have been suggested to make spoofing of these devices more difficult. One such method is liveness, i.e., a determination of whether or not the biometric is measured from a live source. We are developing liveness and other anti-spoofing technology which can be readily incorporated into existing commercial devices. Our approach is primarily software-based and utilizes the biometric information itself. Thus, it requires no additional hardware while maintaining system performance....

Needless to say, the blogosphere is covering this also - everything from The Sweating Guide linkorama to Engadget/The Raw Feed to Tactile Tech to The Esoteric Macrocosm to Emergent Chaos. And perhaps some of these bloggers used a laptop with a fingerprint reader. Now we have to wonder if Emergent Chaos really WAS Emergent Chaos...

P.S. For more information on sweat, see How Stuff Works.

More free wi-fi

2005-12-09T16:36:00.000-08:00

I've told Santa that I want a Hewlett Packard rx1955. But I don't want to pay a monthly fee for wi-fi access. I may not have to:

Kurt Peterson knows how to pick his Wi-Fi. "I go anywhere I can get it for free," he says. "Why should I pay? Enough people do it for free."

Peterson, a Los Angeles union organizer, has been spotted, laptop in hand, cellphone dangling from ear, at a Panera Bread store near Los Angeles International Airport.

Panera, like Schlotzsky's Deli, Krystal restaurants and other independent cafes, libraries, parks and a growing number of cities, offers free wireless Internet access. No strings attached.

The trend marks a major change from well-publicized efforts by companies such as Starbucks, Barnes & Noble and FedEx Kinko's as well as many hotel chains. They offer Internet "hotspots" at many locations for a fee ranging from $4 to $10 a day. Have a Wi-Fi laptop? You can access the Internet in seconds - after you fork over your credit card payment, register and sign in....

Stephen Staats, who runs a health care staffing firm, makes a point of visiting one of the Panera outlets when he's in Los Angeles. "I come here every day I'm in town because I love the free Wi-Fi," he says. "I have my own little office in a booth."...

Wififreespot.com has listings for all 50 states, and separate pages for airports, hotels, RV parks and campgrounds, and vacation rental properties. Hotspot-locations.com and wifinder.com also have global locations.

Neal Yanofsky, executive vice president of the 773-store Panera Bread chain, can't say for sure if he has sold more sandwiches since adding free Wi-Fi service in 2004....

Other chains that offer free Wi-Fi include Diedrich Coffee, Apple retail stores and the EZ Lube auto service chain in California. And most independent coffee houses offer free Wi-Fi to try to lure business away from national chains such as Starbucks....

In California, downtown areas of Long Beach, Hermosa Beach and Culver City have free Wi-Fi. Austin, Cleveland and Spokane, Wash., have Wi-Fi zones, and Philadelphia is building a Wi-Fi system for the entire city....

Be careful when using Wi-Fi in public. If you're doing anything more sensitive than checking e-mail, wait until you get home, says [JiWire CEO Kevin] McKenzie, whose firm sells $39.95 software to make surfing the Wi-Fi web in open cafes more secure.

Still, companies such as Starbucks tout the security - and reliability - of their networks as one reason consumers should pay for access. These companies will continue to appeal to the business traveler who wants consistency, says Jim Sullivan, who runs wififreespot.com.

Free SMS Services

2005-12-08T07:59:00.000-08:00

It's difficult to find sources of free SMS services, other than what I already found. I pretty much keep on running into the big three (or the big two plus the little one):

Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc., as well as the smaller 4Info Inc., are now offering text-messaging search features that allow users to send a query to the search engines via text message and receive a reply within seconds.

The three work in a similar fashion: To use the service, a user sends a text message with the search request to the five-digit number for YAHOO (92466) or GOOGL (46645) or 4INFO (44636).

4INFO tries to be unique in some ways. For example, if you text "pickup" or "pu," you can receive all sorts of pickup lines:

If I received a nickel for everytime I saw someone as beautiful as you, I'd have five cents.

I wonder what our children will look like.

Excuse me, do you have any raisins? How about a date?

Trust me, this list was edited extremely.

Among the more useful services is the hotspot service. Here are the results for "hotspot 91761":

(1/2)Lobby
201 S Plum Ave.
Ontario,CA 91761
Other
Pay

Soft Touch Car Wash
5246 Riverside Dr
Chino,CA 91710
Car Wash
Pay

(2/2)Ontario Chamber of Commerce
421B North Euclid Avenue
Ontario,CA 91762

McDonald's
1107 East 4th Street
Ontario,CA 91764
Pay

Reply w/'m' for more

Why Too What?

2005-12-08T07:50:00.000-08:00

What is wrong with this picture?

From: gtservices@govtech.net [mailto:gtservices@govtech.net]
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 1:53 PM
To: [me]
Subject: eGov News Brief 05.12.07

Yes, I know that this date is contained in an electronic mail message subject and not in a database. Still, I'm disturbed that a technical publication is using two digit years. Or is that not a problem any more?

Here comes the Sun

2005-12-06T11:50:00.000-08:00

From a Sun press release:

MENLO PARK, CALIF; November 30, 2005 - Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) today announced two landmark moves in the battle to create the software platform of choice for the next-generation of the Internet. First, having seen tremendous momentum with the Solaris Operating System (OS) as free and open source software, Sun is making the Java Enterprise System, Sun N1 Management software, and Sun developer tools available at no cost for both development and deployment and further, is reaffirming its commitment to open source this software. Second, Sun is announcing that it is integrating all of this software along with the Solaris OS into the Solaris Enterprise System, the only comprehensive and open infrastructure software platform available today.

You responded Beef (Microsoft Outlook voting features)

2005-11-30T10:56:00.000-08:00

Someone in my company sent me a Microsoft Outlook e-mail asking me to RSVP to our holiday party. (Our company is politically correct.)

The sender used Outlook's voting feature to not only record whether or not the recipients would attend the party, but also to record their meal preferences (we have to tell the hotel what meals we will be ordering).

The choices are Beef, Chicken, Fish, Vegetarian, and Decline (the latter is to be used if you don't plan to attend the party).

Because my company does not allow alcohol at company events, a voting button for "No Food Just Booze" was not included.

What Goes On

2005-11-24T21:30:00.000-08:00

I finally downloaded Google Earth, which I was discussing here a few months ago ([1] [2] [3]). I'm still at a very basic level, looking at my wife's car and traveling across the country. Meanwhile, other people have the belief that buildings are speaking to them, are talking about "Google Space" at Heathrow, and are touting the features of the new Google Middle Earth.

Meanwhile, Spatially Adjusted is noting the Google Earth may be the ideal tool for some GIS applications, if it beefs itself up:

I’ve been talking quite a bit over the past few weeks about why I think Google Earth will become the default GIS viewer in the next year, but I thought I’d also post about what might keep it from [be]coming that viewer....

GE should be able to handle different projections on the fly. ArcGIS has done this for years and I think it is a requirement for any GIS data viewer. Because most of our work is for the U.S. Department of Defense, we deal in UTM and State Plane most of the time. I’d just rather not have to worry about changing projections (or have an ArcGIS extension do this for me)....

I’d like to have an API exposed so I can add buttons and forms so I can add or subtract features I don’t need. Google Earth is simple, but sometimes I need something even more simple....

As we load up more complex information into Google Earth, we’ll need a better “Find” dialog to get at this data. I’m not sure how Google will view this since they are all about “I feel lucky”, but I know many Engineers and Planners who will want this capability....

We need better information about what the acquire date of the satellite imagery is and the source of the road information. I don’t want phone calls from clients telling me that the photo is out of date when at the bottom of the screen it says “Copyright 2005 Google”....

Google Earth is a “geoviewer”, not an analysis tool. GE is about a 70% solution toward a great GIS tool, but its limitations are showing up in how I’d like to deploy it for my clients. I can see many cases when Google Earth is all they would need, but I suspect unless Google Earth opens up more on many of the above points as well as their planned updates to the datasets, I’ll probably be looking more toward ArcExplorer....

Sony Fallout

2005-11-21T11:52:00.000-08:00

Here's an update on the previously reported Sony copy protection scheme which some have characterized as malware.

Here's an excerpt from the first of two articles courtesy Security Pipeline:

After two weeks of withering criticism from bloggers and others, Sony BMG Music Entertainment last week found itself forced to stop selling some 50 CD titles with its Extended Copy Protection content-protection software, remove the discs from stores, and offer replacements without copy protection to customers.

Sony issued an apology on its Web site, citing security concerns raised by installation of the XCP software, provided--as Sony was quick to point out--by digital-rights-management vendor First4Internet Ltd.

And here's part of the second article from Security Pipeline:

Sony's controversial copy-protection scheme had been in use for seven months before its cloaking rootkit was discovered, leading one analyst to question the effectiveness of the security industry.
"[For] at least for seven months, Sony BMG Music CD buyers have been installing rootkits on their PCs. Why then did no security software vendor detect a problem and alert customers?" asked Joe Wilcox, an analyst with JupiterResearch.

"Where the failure is, that's the question mark. Is it an indictment of how consumers view security software, that they have a sense of false protection, even when they don't update their anti-virus and anti-spyware software?

"Or is it in how data is collected by security companies and how they're analyzing to catch trends?"

For the record, here is Sony's statement on the matter:

November 18, 2005
To Our Valued Customers:

You may be aware of the recent attention given to the XCP content protection software included on some SONY BMG CDs. This software was provided to us by a third-party vendor, First4Internet. Discussion has centered on security concerns raised about the use of CDs containing this software.

We share the concerns of consumers regarding these discs, and we are instituting a mail-in program that will allow consumers to exchange any CD with XCP software for the same CD without copy protection and receive MP3 files of the same title. We also have asked our retail partners to remove all unsold CDs with XCP software from their store shelves and inventory. Please click here for exchange program details.

We deeply regret any inconvenience this may cause our customers and we are committed to making this situation right. It is important to note that the issues regarding these discs exist only when they are played on computers, not on conventional, non-computer-based CD and/or DVD players.

Our new initiatives follow the measures we have already taken, including the voluntary suspension of the manufacture of CDs with the XCP software. In addition, to address security concerns, we provided to major software and anti-virus companies a software update, which also may be downloaded at http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/updates.html. We will shortly provide a simplified and secure procedure to uninstall the XCP software if it resides on your computer.

Ultimately, the experience of consumers is our primary concern, and our goal is to help bring our artists' music to as broad an audience as possible. Going forward, we will continue to identify new ways to meet demands for flexibility in how you and other consumers listen to music.

Please click here for an FAQ on this topic.

# # #

So So Sony

2005-11-01T12:49:00.000-08:00

Snort a Sprocket links to Marks' SysInternals Blog:

Last week when I was testing the latest version of RootkitRevealer (RKR) I ran a scan on one of my systems and was shocked to see evidence of a rootkit. Rootkits are cloaking technologies that hide files, Registry keys, and other system objects from diagnostic and security software, and they are usually employed by malware attempting to keep their implementation hidden....

[After some extensive work] [t]he cloak was gone as I expected and I could see all the previously hidden files in Explorer and Registry keys in Regedit. I doubted that the files had any version information, but ran my Sigcheck utility on them anyway. To my surprise, the majority did have identifying product, file and company strings. I had already recognized Dbghelp.dll and Unicows.dll as Microsoft Windows DLLs by their names. The other files claimed to be part of the “Essential System Tools” product from a company called “First 4 Internet”...

I entered the company name into my Internet browser’s address bar and went to http://www.first4internet.com/. I searched for both the product name and Aries.sys, but came up empty. However, the fact that the company sells a technology called XCP made me think that maybe the files I’d found were part of some content protection scheme. I Googled the company name and came across this article, confirming the fact that they have deals with several record companies, including Sony, to implement Digital Rights Management (DRM) software for CDs.

The DRM reference made me recall having purchased a CD recently that can only be played using the media player that ships on the CD itself and that limits you to at most 3 copies. I scrounged through my CD’s and found it, Sony BMG’s Get Right with the Man (the name is ironic under the circumstances) CD by the Van Zant brothers. I hadn’t noticed when I purchased the CD from Amazon.com that it’s protected with DRM software....

I inserted the CD into the drive and double-clicked on the icon to launch the player software, which has icons for making up to three copy-protected backup CDs....

Process Explorer showed the player as being from Macromedia, but I noticed an increase in CPU usage by $sys$DRMServer.exe, one of the previously cloaked images, when I pressed the play button. A look at the Services tab of its process properties dialog showed it contains a service named “Plug and Play Device Manager”, which is obviously an attempt to mislead the casual user that stumbles across it in the Services MMC snapin (services.msc) into thinking that it’s a core part of Windows....

I closed the player and expected $sys$DRMServer’s CPU usage to drop to zero, but was dismayed to see that it was still consuming between one and two percent. It appears I was paying an unknown CPU penalty for just having the process active on my system. I launched Filemon and Regmon to see what it might be doing and the Filemon trace showed that it scans the executables corresponding to the running processes on the system every two seconds, querying basic information about the files, including their size, eight times each scan....

I knew conclusively that the rootkit and its associated files were related to the First 4 Internet DRM software Sony ships on its CDs. Not happy having underhanded and sloppily written software on my system I looked for a way to uninstall it. However, I didn’t find any reference to it in the Control Panel’s Add or Remove Programs list, nor did I find any uninstall utility or directions on the CD or on First 4 Internet’s site. I checked the EULA and saw no mention of the fact that I was agreeing to have software put on my system that I couldn't uninstall. Now I was mad....

The entire experience was frustrating and irritating. Not only had Sony put software on my system that uses techniques commonly used by malware to mask its presence, the software is poorly written and provides no means for uninstall. Worse, most users that stumble across the cloaked files with a RKR scan will cripple their computer if they attempt the obvious step of deleting the cloaked files.

While I believe in the media industry’s right to use copy protection mechanisms to prevent illegal copying, I don’t think that we’ve found the right balance of fair use and copy protection, yet. This is a clear case of Sony taking DRM too far.

A Technical Examination of Daily Dancer

2005-10-29T14:12:00.000-07:00

I never thought I'd be mentioning Daily Dancer in the Ontario Technoblog, but after his latest dance, I was moved to do so.

First, a little bit about Daily Dancer for those who haven't heard of him.

So I done visited Mitzzee's blog Ooh La La (she's from the northern Ontario, y'know) and ran across this post:

"YOU MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST CHECK OUT THIS GUYS BLOG!!!!!..."

"This guy" goes by the name Daily Dancer, and is a self-described "computer geek who loves to dance." His blog includes wmv files of Daily Dancer, in a small apartment living room, dancing to about a minute of some pop hit....

Man. The guy has balls, AND he's a better dancer than I. The world is interesting at times.

Although I subsequently suspected that the website was just created for purposes of a contest, Daily Dancer set me straight on that:

Ahhh, yes, I am in the contest, but I had ideas for this site long before I heard of the contest. I just thought the contest would be a cool way to launch my site. I hope to keep this thing going even after the contest ends. I'm glad you like my site.
- Daily Dancer

P.S. By mentioning the other sites in the contest, you are helping them to get even farther ahead. :)

And, I'm adding a link to your blog.

posted by Daily Dancer : Monday, June 06, 2005 6:27:18 AM

Well, even after the contest ended, Daily Dancer kept on dancing, posting several dances a week. None of this necessarily merits mention in the Technoblog, but then I ran across this dance.

...And today, we have... Jacko!

Yeah, my girlfriend can't stand Michael Jackson, but since this is a very special occasion, she let me have this one song. Enjoy!

This is one of the first dances that is available in two formats. In addition to .wmv format, .mov format is now also supported.

Follow the link and click on the format of your choice. The first few seconds look almost like any Daily Dancer video - there he is, dancing in his living room, with the only odd thing being the pumpkin in front of him. Oh - and he's wearing one glove.

Ten seconds into the dance, the effects begin. I am not an expert on video special effects, so I can only describe them as I see them:

Daily Dancer goes ghostly - his body is partially transparent, and is glowing white.

After a while, Daily Dancer's body returns to normal, but all the objects around him look like neon in the darkness.

Everything then returns to normal, except for his body being slightly transparent.

Well, I can't really do it justice. But just think - back when the original "Thriller" video was released, it cost oodles of money. Today, a guy in a living room can apply special effects on the cheap. (And better still, Daily Dancer does not give "Jesus juice" to young boys.)

If someone more knowledgeable than me can explain the video production techniques, please do so in the comments.

I'm waiting for the Google floor cleaner that's also a dessert topping

2005-10-26T22:13:00.000-07:00

Is there a business that Google hasn't launched in beta form? InfoWorld refers to the buzz about something called Google Base.

On Wednesday, a screen shot of a Google beta, or test, service called Google Base began circulating via blogs and news stories. There aren't many details on the page, which has since been removed but is still available in screen shot form on various Web sites. The page encourages visitors to post items on Google Base, defined by the company as a database where Google offers to host all types of content, making the content searchable online.

As an example, Google suggests that users can list a used car for sale and also suggests that users can post "descriptions of your party-planning service" or a "database of protein structures."

It's the used car example that seems to have led many onlookers to imagine that Google is planning to encroach on eBay’s space. However, the Google Base Web page makes no mention of an auction or online sales capability.

Here's what Google says about its plans:

Rumor of the day
10/25/2005 05:02:00 PM

Posted by Tom Oliveri, Product Marketing Manager

You may have seen stories today reporting on a new product that we're testing, and speculating about our plans. Here's what's really going on. We are testing a new way for content owners to submit their content to Google, which we hope will complement existing methods such as our web crawl and Google Sitemaps. We think it's an exciting product, and we'll let you know when there's more news.

Off-topic - the title of this post is explained here.

White Light Generator (Michael Bowers, not Ladytron)

2005-10-24T12:28:00.000-07:00

From Live Science:

Accidental Invention Points to End of Light Bulbs
By Bjorn Carey

The main light source of the future will almost surely not be a bulb. It might be a table, a wall, or even a fork....

Michael Bowers, a graduate student at Vanderbilt University, was just trying to make really small quantum dots, which are crystals generally only a few nanometers big....

Quantum dots contain anywhere from 100 to 1,000 electrons. They're easily excited bundles of energy, and the smaller they are, the more excited they get. Each dot in Bower's particular batch was exceptionally small, containing only 33 or 34 pairs of atoms.

When you shine a light on quantum dots or apply electricity to them, they react by producing their own light, normally a bright, vibrant color. But when Bowers shined a laser on his batch of dots, something unexpected happened.

"I was surprised when a white glow covered the table," Bowers said. "The quantum dots were supposed to emit blue light, but instead they were giving off a beautiful white glow."

Then Bowers and another student got the idea to stir the dots into polyurethane and coat a blue LED light bulb with the mix. The lumpy bulb wasn't pretty, but it produced white light similar to a regular light bulb....

The new device gives off a warm, yellowish-white light that shines twice as bright and lasts 50 times longer than the standard 60 watt light bulb.

This work is published online in the Oct. 18 edition of the Journal of the American Chemical Society....

If the new process can be developed into commercial production, light won't come just from newfangled bulbs. Quantum dot mixtures could be painted on just about anything and electrically excited to produce a rainbow of colors, including white....

From Vanderbilt University:

Until now quantum dots have been known primarily for their ability to produce a dozen different distinct colors of light simply by varying the size of the individual nanocrystals: a capability particularly suited to fluorescent labeling in biomedical applications. But chemists at Vanderbilt University discovered a way to make quantum dots spontaneously produce broad-spectrum white light. The report of their discovery, which happened by accident, appears in the communication “White-light Emission from Magic-Sized Cadmium Selenide Nanocrystals” published online October 18 by the Journal of the American Chemical Society....

[Michael] Bowers works in the laboratory of Associate professor of Chemistry Sandra Rosenthal. The accidental discovery was the result of the request of one of his coworkers, post-doctoral student and electron microscopist James McBride, who is interested in the way in which quantum dots grow. He thought that the structure of small-sized dots might provide him with new insights into the growth process, so he asked Bowers to make him a batch of small-sized quantum dots that he could study.

“I made him a batch and he came back to me and asked if I could make them any smaller,” says Bowers. So he made a second batch of even smaller nanocrystals. But once again, McBride asked him for something smaller. So Bowers made a batch of the smallest quantum dots he knew how to make. It turns out that these were crystals of cadmium and selenium that contain either 33 or 34 pairs of atoms, which happens to be a “magic size” that the crystals form preferentially. As a result, the magic-sized quantum dots were relatively easy to make even though they are less than half the size of normal quantum dots.

After Bowers cleaned up the batch, he pumped a solution containing the nanocrystals into a small glass cell and illuminated it with a laser. “I was surprised when a white glow covered the table,” Bowers says. “The quantum dots were supposed to emit blue light, but instead they were giving off a beautiful white glow.”

“The exciting thing about this is that it is a nano-nanoscience phenomenon,” Rosenthal comments. In the larger nanocrystals, which produce light in narrow spectral bands, the light originates in the center of the crystal. But, as the size of the crystal shrinks down to the magic size, the light emission region appears to move to the surface of the crystal and broadens out into a full spectrum.

Another student in the lab got the idea of using polyurethane wood finish for thin film research while working on his parent’s summer cabin. He had even brought some Minwax into the lab. That gave Bowers the idea of mixing the magic-sized quantum dots with the polyurethane and coating an LED. The result was a bit lumpy, but it proved that the magic-sized quantum dots could be used to make a white light source.

For more information, see

J. Am. Chem. Soc., ASAP Article 10.1021/ja055470d S0002-7863(05)05470-3
Web Release Date: October 18, 2005

Copyright © 2005 American Chemical Society
White-Light Emission from Magic-Sized Cadmium Selenide Nanocrystals

Michael J. Bowers II, James R. McBride, and Sandra J. Rosenthal*

Department of Chemistry, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37235

sandra.j.rosenthal@vanderbilt.edu
Received August 22, 2005

Abstract:

Magic-sized cadmium selenide (CdSe) nanocrystals have been pyrolytically synthesized. These ultra-small nanocrystals exhibit broadband emission (420-710 nm) that covers most of the visible spectrum while not suffering from self absorption. This behavior is a direct result of the extremely narrow size distribution and unusually large Stokes shift (40-50 nm). The intrinsic properties of these ultra-small nanocrystals make them an ideal material for applications in solid state lighting and also the perfect platform to study the molecule-to-nanocrystal transition.

[OE 4 JAN 2006: UPDATE HERE, INCLUDING PREVIOUS RESEARCH.]

More on hazardous waste

2005-10-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

I live in EPA Region 9, which includes "Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, the Pacific Islands, and over 140 Tribal Nations." This region has a page which "provides links to government, academic and industry Web pages dedicated to both hazardous waste site characterization and remediation technologies. They are intended for use by Superfund and RCRA project managers, researchers, engineers, the public, or anyone who may be looking for technologies to solve site specific hazardous waste problems."

(Yes, the Ontario Vineyard Village Association is hard at work.)

Overripe

2005-10-22T19:45:00.000-07:00

From Reuters/Yahoo:

Research in Motion Ltd. moved closer on Friday to an injunction that could halt U.S. sales of its popular BlackBerry wireless device after it lost a bid to suspend a patent case against it....

The case goes back to 2002, when patent holding company NTP successfully sued RIM in a lower court. It won an injunction in 2003 to halt U.S. sales of the BlackBerry and shut down its service, although that ruling was stayed pending appeal.

The appeals court scaled back the initial ruling, but still concluded that RIM infringed on NTP patents. RIM shares sank earlier this month when the appeals court refused to reconsider the matter further....

NTP said on Friday it will ask the court to confirm the injunction. It said an injunction would not affect BlackBerry products used by U.S. federal, state, or local governments, where the wireless email device has become increasingly popular....

Up in the air...

2005-10-22T19:41:00.000-07:00

From Ziff Davis/Yahoo:

Portal company Yahoo Inc. informed customers of its subscription music download service that it will increase pricing for users who transfer their tunes onto portable devices or CDs.

The Sunnyvale, Calif., firm forwarded an e-mail to its Yahoo Music Unlimited subscribers late Thursday telling customers that it plans to double the fee it charges for the so-called unlimited service from $4.99 per month to $9.99 per month, for people who buy the service on an annual basis.

Yahoo said people who subscribe to the download service on a monthly basis will see their memberships increase from $6.99 per month to $11.99 per month....

Web-based download pricing has come under increased scrutiny recently from leaders in the music industry who say that Apple's 99 cents per song payment plan won't generate sufficient income to cover recording companies' expenses for recruiting, signing and supporting artists.

At the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment Conference last month, Edgar Bronfman, the chief executive of Warner Music Group Corp., said in a keynote that more flexible pricing plans were needed to help defer the cost of recording and promoting performers.

However, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has rebutted such observations, calling the recording industry "greedy" and warning that more consumers will resort to illegal file sharing if companies raise their process significantly....

Where's Tim, and why you should care (arf)

2005-10-21T17:27:00.000-07:00

Tim Hibbard posted this on August 30, 2005:

Using EnGraph's GPSParser, Air-Trak's Cloudberry AVL data and Google Maps, I built a web page that shows my real time location.

It took a little over an hour to put together. That shows the ease of EnGraph GPS Management tools and Google Maps.

Here's the page - www.timhibbard.com/wherestim.aspx

I'm sure you've heard of Google Maps, so let's dig into the other technologies.

From EnGraph:

EnGraph can quickly enable GPS tracking for your organization. Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) technology has become easier to implement and far less expensive. Let EnGraph show you how easy it is for any industry...

EnGraph can implement different levels of GPS/AVL technology to your organization. From passive GPS tracking with automated downloads to real-time AVL systems. Use integrated Messaging systems to communicate in real-time with MDT, PocketPC, or Motorola equipped vehicles....

Architecture #2) Real-Time AVL with Nextel Wireless and Cloudberry

For any size fleet, the Real-Time AVL with Nextel Wireless solution provides an affordable way to communicate with and monitor each vehicle in real-time. Nextel Phones or In-Vehicle platforms transmit GPS and other data through Nextel wireless networks to the Cloudberry® Data Center, which is then accessed through internet and displayed with EnGraph software.

The hardware and architecture for this solution is provided by Nextel and Cloudberry, a leading GPS tracking and communication system. The Cloudberry® GPS system gives managers real-time visibility and control of their mobile workers, vehicles, and assets to increase productivity, security, customer service, and profitability.

The Cloudberry® Nextel Phones platform enables you to track and message with your mobile workforce using Nextel GPS, Java-enabled phones running over the Nextel nationwide guaranteed all-digital wireless network.
The platform gives you accurate, up-to-the-minute information on employee locations, hours, and job statuses.

The Cloudberry® Nextel In-Vehicle platform is a rugged, vehicle-mounted unit enabling managers to track and communicate with their mobile employees through the Nextel nationwide guaranteed all-digital wireless network.
The platform offers a variety of unique security and communication features.

It turns out that Nextel themselves offer a number of GPS tracking solutions.

And it turns out that Verizon doesn't:

My phone says GPS. What does that mean? Can other people or agencies see where I am located?
Many of the phones sold by Verizon Wireless in 2002-2003 and 100% of the new handsets sold since December 31, 2003 are GPS-capable, which means there is a chipset in the phone that will help provide location information to a PSAP when a caller dials 911. The phone is not a stand-alone GPS device. The handset alone does not support or initiate any kind of individual tracking capability. The location-determining capability becomes functional after dialing 911 when the network is prompted to determine the mobiles' location.

From Cloudberry's perspective:

CLOUDBERRY PLATFORMS

With Cloudberry®, you can track and communicate with your mobile workforce using two hardware platforms: Nextel® GPS, Java-enabled phones and rugged Nextel In-Vehicle units that deliver always-on tracking, push-to-talk communications, and added security.

The Nextel Phone and Nextel In-Vehicle platforms run over Nextel’s nationwide guaranteed all-digital wireless network. When Nextel coverage is unavailable, both platforms can cost effectively provide 100% satellite coverage of North and Central America with the SatCom Upgrade module.

You can mix and match Cloudberry platforms and modules, scale them up to tens of thousands, and conveniently monitor and manage them from a single Cloudberry display.

Nextel Phones or In-Vehicle platforms transmit GPS and other data through satellite and Nextel wireless networks to the Cloudberry Data Center, which is then accessed via an Internet-connected PC.

Morpeth speculated on the possibilities:

Other possible applications: Pets? Children? Vehicles?

Actually, vehicles are already covered, either via something like the EnGraph solution or via a LoJack solution. Children and pets are an interesting application, although tracking of children could raise a number of privacy questions (does a parent have the right to track their teenager's whereabouts?) and abuse questions (what if someone intercepts the location and uses it to track down a particular minor)?

But no such restrictions occur for pets, and I'm sure that police agencies and rich pet-owners would love to be able to track Fido in case he (or she) runs away.

Robert Vamosi gives public biometrics the finger

2005-10-21T12:15:00.000-07:00

From Security Watch:

Biometrics, although it's been around for a while, is suddenly hot within the security industry. Over the years, I've talked with various biometric vendors and security individuals, and I've always come away with a lukewarm feeling about the matter. I like biometrics on my laptop but not at the airport. Now biometrics, specifically fingerprint scanners, may soon be coming to a retail store near you as a convenient form of payment. The genie appears to be out of the bottle, with talk of library cards and even automobiles equipped with biometric security devices available or coming soon. Yet the question remains: Are biometric devices more secure than existing methods? I think not....

There are two basic methods for scanning fingerprints: optical scanning and capacitance scanning. Optical scanning uses a charged coupled device (CCD) to take a picture of your fingerprint. In doing so, it flips the image so that the valleys appear dark and the ridges appear light.

In capacitance scanning, electrical current instead of light is used to make up a fingerprint sample. Your finger rests against an array of tiny cells. The benefit here is that capacitance scanning is much harder to forge than a mere optical scan of a fingerprint.

Whether it be an optical image or a capacitance scan, the fingerprint must be compared to an existing database. To compare the entire print would require a lot of processing power; instead, as seen on CSI and other crime shows, unique identifiers are tagged and compared against a standing database using algorithms. Unfortunately, there are no standards regarding fingerprint analysis--at least not among the many new commercial systems about to roll out....

Companies such as Pay By Touch are racing to install fingerprint readers at local points of sale; stores identified on its site are specific locations of Piggly Wiggly, Cub Foods, and Farm Fresh stores. The idea, according to companies such as Pay By Touch, is that swiping your debit card and keying your PIN takes too much time; it creates long lines at the checkout. With biometrics, they argue, you simply press your index finger to a pad, and your debit account is automatically accessed, and more people buy more things faster.

I question the security of a one-touch payment system. With a debit card, I'm using two-factor authentication: I need the card, and I need a PIN number. With one-touch payment systems, you have only the fingerprint between you and fraud....

Simson Garfinkel points out, in a recent issue of CSO magazine, several examples of built-in flaws regarding fingerprint scanning: What about children with faint and sometimes ill-defined ridges and valleys? Certain ethnic groups are at a disadvantage, having less-distinct fingerprints than others. And what about people without hands?

And certainly if you've watched enough television or read an issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, you know of a few ways to lift fingerprints using talcum and tape, or even gummi bears. In April 2005, security analyst Bruce Schneier wrote about a carjacking in Malaysia that involved the attacker sawing off the index finger of the victim in order to gain access to the victim's biometrically secured Mercedes S-class....

Intelligent Transportation Systems

2005-10-19T13:05:00.000-07:00

Several websites dealing with intelligent transportation systems:

http://www.its.dot.gov/index.htm [From http://www.its.dot.gov/its_overview.htm: "Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) encompass a broad range of wireless and wire line communications-based information and electronics technologies. When integrated into the transportation system's infrastructure, and in vehicles themselves, these technologies relieve congestion, improve safety and enhance American productivity."]

http://www.itsa.org/

http://www.its.washington.edu/ ["Most transportation professionals agree that we cannot simply build our way out of urban congestion problems. Intelligent transportation systems provide the technology to enable people to make smart travel choices."]

http://www.ewh.ieee.org/tc/its/

http://dfwtraffic.dot.state.tx.us/ ["Traffic congestion in Dallas and Fort Worth is a problem that needs a unified approach instead of individual efforts from the many local entities of the urban area. Recognizing this, the Fort Worth and Dallas District offices of the Texas Department of Transportation have joined forces with local governments to launch a comprehensive traffic management program using Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)."]

http://www.its-australia.com.au/kmxserver3/

http://mit.edu/its/

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/15472450.asp

This list presented for the benefit of the person who was searching for intelligent transportation system information and ended up here. Sorry I couldn't help you earlier.

Free Wi Fi and VPN Issues

2005-10-18T07:31:00.000-07:00

Free Wi Fi and the Business Model

2005-10-18T06:50:00.000-07:00

This is being posted from Rico Coffee, 2320-A Foothill Blvd., La Verne, CA 91750. (Hey, it's not as automated as Where's Tim Hibbard, but it works.) I need to check my work e-mail before 8:00 Pacific time to see if I received an important e-mail from the East Coast, and for personal reasons I find myself in the La Verne area. After a bit of hunting, I was able to locate a free wi-fi location (well, if you don't count the medium coffee and the blueberry muffin, but it's still a lot cheaper than six dollars an hour or whatever the going rate is).

Granted that La Verne, California isn't San Francisco, California, or even Hermiston, Oregon, but even here we have a potential challenge to the business model of Wayport and the rest that charge large amounts for wi-fi access.

From Wi-Fi Planet:

...While wireless companies are busy building out fee-based services in such myriad locations as hotels, coffee shops, RV parks and truck stops, local community-based hotspots are being thrown up on the cheap as either marketing gimmicks or because the owners believe that the Internet should be untethered, ubiquitous and free. The free hotspot movement may seem a bit naove and quixotic, but it does pose a serious threat to the business case of the for-pay hotspot movement.

"At the very least," said John Yunker, an analyst at Pyramid Research, "the free hotspots will put downward pressure on the price of the for-pay services." The research firm believes that there will be more than 21,000 hotspots in the United States and 45,000 globally by the end of 2004, and that the price for the services will begin to fall soon thereafter. "[T]he rapid growth in Wi-Fi users will be coupled with equally rapid price erosion," Yunker said. "Average revenue per user will drop from $30 per month this year to $3 per month in 2008."

The operators of the community-based free sites receive $0 per user, yet show no signs of abandoning their nodes. For them, Wi-Fi is a valuable marketing tool. Phil Lavigna, who operates Little Italy WiFi in San Diego, says that setting up a Wi-Fi node is fairly cheap, and with it comes the opportunity to communicate with users via the splash page, the first Web page users see when signing on. What's more, free Wi-Fi offers good public relations to the community Lavigna's business, Color Graphics, serves....

But this doesn't necessarily mean that wireless ISPs (WISPs) are doomed. Pyramid's Yunker believes that Wi-Fi will be offered as an amenity at many locations, especially in hotels and chain restaurants, and while amenity services may technically be free to the end user, some company has to exist in the background to work out the roaming agreements and security concerns for public-space, business-class wireless access. Users will seek out a service that provides a consistent look and feel across its many locations, and one that shields them from configuration burdens, he said. "In a couple of years, I wouldn't be surprised to see business travelers choosing their hotels based on the availability of a particular Wi-Fi service."

This concern may be overrated. While it took me some time to find this location, once I started up my computer, I was literally connected to the 'Net in a few seconds. Configuration, schmonfiguration. (And yes, I'm using a VPN to check that important e-mail.)

However, I'll grant that the article above was written in October, 2003, and I'm still not seeing any big decrease in that "$30 per month" service.

IBM Taking Rational Software Toward Open Source

2005-10-17T23:17:00.000-07:00

From TechWeb:

IBM is submitting a good amount of its Rational software process platform and related material to the Eclipse Foundation, the first step toward open-sourcing that material.

ADVERTISEMENT

Specifically, the company is donating the meta model for describing development processes, the tools for customizing and creating processes, and a portion of the Rational Unified Process (RUP), said Roger Oberg, vice president of IBM's Rational group, based in Lexington, Mass.

The move is the latest in a series of contributions that IBM has made to Eclipse, an organization it helped found, as well as to Sourceforge.net, Apache.org and other open-source efforts.

The Eclipse Foundation will review, accept or modify IBM’s latest submission, and in all likelihood the foundation will release an Eclipse process framework sometime next year, Oberg told CRN on Tuesday. "Rational created what many thought of as the de facto standard for development, but you had to use Rational tools. We did all the authoring, and although we solicited best practices [from outside] we were the control point for the tooling, framework and content," he said....

So Much for Anonymous Copying

2005-10-17T23:11:00.000-07:00

From AP:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation says it has cracked the tracking codes embedded in Xerox Corp.'s DocuColor color laser printers. Such codes are just one way that manufacturers employ technology to help governments fight currency counterfeiting....

Researchers found patterns of yellow dots arranged in 15 by 8 grids and printed repeatedly over every color page, said Seth Schoen, a staff technologist at the San Francisco-based civil-liberties group.

The dots are visible only with a magnifying glass or under blue light, which causes the yellow dots to appear black....

At the Secret Service, which helps develop such technologies with other government agencies and industry, spokesman Eric Zahren said the tools are designed "simply to make it more difficult to utilize that equipment for the illegal activity of reproducing genuine U.S. currency."

"They do not in any way track the use of a personal computer or a person's computer's hardware or software," he added, refusing to elaborate on the technologies.

But Schoen said much can be gleaned from the printouts alone.

Consider two documents, one carrying the author's name and one meant to be anonymous. By comparing the codes, it can be determined whether the two documents came from the same printer, even if Xerox reveals nothing about a customer's serial number, Schoen said....

Adobe Systems Inc. has acknowledged quietly adding the government software to its Photoshop software at the request of regulators and international bankers.

I guess you could say they're not employing a Steamroller approach

2005-10-17T12:56:00.000-07:00

From heise online:

Through a "gentle" Linux migration the city of Mannheim in southern Germany is aiming to become "fit for the future." Although the go-ahead was already given last year, when requirements were assessed and scenarios discussed, it is only now that the migration of basic services has entered its final phase. In the current quarter the Oracle Collaboration Suite is to be deployed and by the end of 2005 the migration to Linux of all registration, file-management, and printing services is to be completed. This implied that by the end of the year 1,100 network printers would in all likelihood be managed via a central print server, the administration of the city of Mannheim declared.

It is in this city that a "gentle migration" approach is being tried -- in the course of which the basic infrastructure services such as the city administration's 110 servers are migrated first and it is only at the very end that the 3,700 PCs of the employees with their 150 different specialist software applications are switched to the new system. This helped to keep training expenditure at manageable levels and prevented staff from feeling overwhelmed by the requirements of the new system, the city administration noted. So far the administration's staff is still employing the Windows applications it has long been familiar with. The city however has already commissioned a study on the introduction of OpenOffice. It would probably take another four to five years before Linux appeared on the staff's PC desktops, Gerd Armbruster of Mannheim city's IT department told heise online.

Mannheim was the first major German city to proceed along this path, he said. The rationale for Mannheim's approach was provided by the recommendations to rely more extensively on Open Source in the public sector given by Germany's Federal Ministry of the Interior and the European Union, Mr. Armbruster observed. The officials of Mannheim's city administration are inspired and guided in their endeavor in particular by the Migration Manual issued by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior.

As in the case of Munich, where the city administration was also migrating to Linux, Microsoft's decision in 2004 to end its support for the operating system Windows NT had been a major factor contributing to the outcome of the decision-making process, Mr. Armbruster pointed out. New investments in IT infrastructure would have been necessary in any case, he added. The technical partner to all phases of Mannheim's "gentle migration" is IBM.

Day is Done

2005-10-17T12:52:00.000-07:00

[Oops, I did it again.]

Another Wi-Fi Cloud is in the Bidding Stage

2005-10-17T12:42:00.000-07:00

From SiliconValley.com / Yahoo:

San Francisco officials released responses Friday from 17 companies -- including Web search giant Google -- that are interested in bringing affordable wireless Internet connections to the entire city.

Google has offered to build the network for free, as has fellow Mountain View company MetroFi. Google's eight-page response was heavy on company philosophy, but provided few details on the company's blueprint for a San Francisco wireless Internet, or WiFi, network.

The company hopes to work with San Diego-based WFI, which would provide network engineering and installation services. Google also hopes to leverage its skill at bringing ultra-targeted advertising to those who use its network....

MetroFi's proposal was far longer and outlined the details for how it would build a citywide WiFi network. The company operates similar networks in Cupertino and Santa Clara, and charges subscribers $19.95 a month for access.

In MetroFi's proposal for San Francisco, residents and businesses could connect to the Internet for free if they agreed to keep a small advertising window open on their computers. Otherwise, customers would pay $14.95 a month for a 1-mps connection. One megabit equals 1,000 kilobits....

City officials said they expected to make a decision by the end of the month on whether to launch a formal request for proposals or to enter into direct negotiations with a company....

So much for a wi-fi free San Francisco... :)

Biggest Wi-Fi Cloud is in Rural Oregon

2005-10-17T12:41:00.000-07:00

Perhaps wi-fi will survive after all:

HERMISTON, Ore. - Parked alongside his onion fields, Bob Hale can prop open a laptop and read his e-mail or, with just a keystroke, check the moisture of his crops.

As the jack rabbits run by, he can watch CNN online, play a video game or turn his irrigation sprinklers on and off, all from the air conditioned comfort of his truck.

While cities around the country are battling over plans to offer free or cheap Internet access, this lonely terrain is served by what is billed as the world's largest hotspot, a wireless cloud that stretches over 700 square miles of landscape....

But here among the thistle, large providers such as local phone company Qwest Communications International Inc. see little profit potential. So wireless entrepreneur Fred Ziari drew no resistance for his proposed wireless network, enabling him to quickly build the $5 million cloud at his own expense.

While his service is free to the general public, Ziari is recovering the investment through contracts with more than 30 city and county agencies, as well as big farms such as Hale's, whose onion empire supplies over two-thirds of the red onions used by the Subway sandwich chain. Morrow County, for instance, pays $180,000 a year for Ziari's service.

Each client, he said, pays not only for yearly access to the cloud but also for specialized applications such as a program that allows local officials to check parking meters remotely.

"Internet service is only a small part of it. The same wireless system is used for surveillance, for intelligent traffic system, for intelligent transportation, for telemedicine and for distance education," said Ziari, who immigrated to the United States from the tiny Iranian town of Shahi on the Caspian Sea....

Even as the number of Wi-Fi hotspots continues to mushroom, with 72,140 now registered globally, only a handful of cities have managed to blanket their entire urban core with wireless Internet access.

Hundreds of cities from San Francisco to Philadelphia have announced plans to throw a wireless tarp over their communities, and a few smaller ones such as Chaska, Minn., have succeeded. But only Ziari appears to have pinned down such a large area.

The wireless network uses both short-range Wi-Fi signals and a version of a related, longer-range technology known as WiMax. While Wi-Fi and WiMax antennas typically connect with the Internet over a physical cable, the transmitters in this network act as wireless relay points, passing the signal along through a technique known as "meshing."

Ziara's company built the towers to match the topography. They are as close as a quarter-of-a-mile apart inside towns like Hermiston, and as far apart as several miles in the high-desert wilderness....

The high desert around Hermiston also happens to be the home of one of the nation's largest stockpiles of Cold War-era chemical weapons. Under federal guidelines, local government officials were required to devise an emergency evacuation plan for the accidental release of nerve and mustard agents.

Now, emergency responders in the three counties surrounding the Umatilla Chemical Depot are equipped with laptop computers that are Wi-Fi ready. These laptops are set up to detail the size and direction of a potential chemical leak, enabling responders to direct evacuees from the field. Traffic lights and billboards posting evacuation messages can also be controlled remotely over the wireless network....

And for the Hermiston Police Department, having squad cars equipped with a wireless laptop means officers can work less overtime by being able to file their crime reports from the field.

While the network was initially set up for the benefit of city and county officials, it's the area's businesses that stand to gain the most, say industry experts.

For the Columbia River Port of Umatilla, one of the largest grain ports in the nation, the wireless network is being used to set up a high-tech security perimeter that will scan bar codes on incoming cargo....

Unfortunately, Pete Townshend Did Not Use The Information Services of Health Canada

2005-10-17T12:01:00.000-07:00

From Health Canada:

Personal stereo systems offer a convenient way to listen to music in public without disturbing others. A typical system combines a portable cassette, compact disc player, or radio, with headphones or earphones. Scientific studies suggest that these devices may cause hearing loss if they are not used with a degree of caution....

Sounds with levels below 70 dBA pose no known risk of hearing loss, no matter how long they last. If you listen to music at 70 dBA, the sound level is about the same as what you experience while driving a four-door family car on the highway with the windows closed.

For sound levels higher than 70 dBA, the duration of daily exposure becomes an important risk factor. For example, sounds with levels of 85 dBA pose no known risk of hearing loss if you are exposed for no longer than 45 minutes per day. However, sound levels of 85 dBA or higher can pose a significant risk of permanent hearing loss, if you are exposed for eight hours per day....

Officials have reviewed scientific literature on personal stereo systems, and have conducted tests to assess their potential to cause hearing loss. These tests measured the sound levels generated at maximum volume settings using a variety of headphones/earphones, and portable compact disc (CD) players. The music selected for the tests included pop songs from the "top ten" charts, and heavy metal tracks.

The findings:

All combinations of headphones/earphones and CD players could generate potentially harmful sound levels

Pop music sound levels ranged from 86 to 102 dBA when researchers used the headphones that came packaged with the CD player. When researchers combined CD players with headphones purchased separately, the sound levels reached 114 dBA - test results also suggested that this was not necessarily the limit

If you played the pre-packaged systems at maximum volume, it would take from 12 minutes (at 102 dBA) to seven hours (at 86 dBA) to exceed the occupational noise limit noted above. Furthermore, you would exceed the limit in just one minute if you played heavy metal or pop music at full volume on the combination CD / headphone system that produced sound levels of 114 dBA. At this sound level, exposure for longer durations can pose a risk of immediate, serious and permanent hearing loss.

Another key finding was that sound levels from earbuds vary significantly from person to person, because the level depends on how well the "buds" fit into your ears. Tight-fitting earbuds tend to produce higher sound levels than other commercially available headphones....

What if I just have a broken leg?

2005-10-13T16:44:00.000-07:00

From Reuters/Yahoo:

Finnish scientists have invented a device to make it harder to steal mobile phones and laptops by enabling them to detect changes in their owner's walking style and then freeze to prevent unauthorized use.

The VTT Technical Research Center of Finland said the device, which is has patented but has yet to sell, could prevent millions of portable appliances being stolen every year.

"A device is equipped with sensors that measure certain characteristics of the user's gait. When the device is used for the first time, these measurements are saved in its memory," VTT said in a statement.

The gadget would monitor the user's walking style and check it against the saved information. If the values differ, the user would have to enter a password.

"Compared with passwords and traditional bio-identification, the new method is simple: confirmation of identity takes place as a background process without any need for user's intervention," the researchers said.

However, even if you assume that the same person carries the phone at all times and doesn't let others borrow it, how accurate is gait identification?

Variation because of tiredness, age and health (eg arthritis, a twisted ankle or prosthetic limb), bad footwear and carrying objects may also degrade confidence in results.

cGMPs

2005-10-12T11:49:00.000-07:00

What does this mean? Take www.cgmp.com:

Current Good Manufacturing Practices

Good Manufacturing Practice regulations (GMPs) are used by pharmaceutical, medical device, and food manufacturers as they produce and test products that people use. Drug GMPs also apply to the veterinary drugs.

In the United States, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued these regulations as the minimum requirements. This site helps you access the GMP regulations called current Good Manufacturing Practices and provides a special emphasis on the drug cGMPs.

Most countries have their own GMPs for drug and medical device manufacturers. Those published on the Web, and of which we are aware, have links from this site.

But it is the singular or the plural? The FDA thinks it's one singular regulation.

Code of Federal Regulations

The Current Codified CGMP Regulations 21 CFR, Parts 210 and 211

In-Process Changes to the Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP) Regulations

Federal Register Notice Proposed Rule, Proposed Changes to the CGMP Regulations about Validation, Out-of-Specification Findings, etc. (5/3/96)
Federal Register Notice Final Rule, Partial, Extension of Compliance Date, (7/29/97); or Acrobat Version
Federal Register Notice Proposed Rule, Revision of Certain Labeling Controls (7/29/97); or Acrobat Version

Or maybe it doesn't have anything to do with drug manufacturing - perhaps they're talking about Cyclic Nucleotide Metabolism-cGMP.

Of course, Cisco people think about the Cisco Group Management Protocol.

So what do you do if you assemble information about the Current Good Manufacturing Practices for Cyclic Nucleotide Metabolism, and transmit this information using the Cisco Group Management Protocol?

Cubular, man.

Privacy and Technology

2005-10-11T08:05:00.000-07:00

It's no surprise that the United States is not leading the world in the adoption of biometric technologies at banks - we Americans just got this privacy thang in our heads - but guess which country is leading? Surprise:

Colombia is one of the few places in the world where banks are using fingerprint biometrics, which verify people's identities based on their unique physical characteristics.

Scanning fingerprints or irises to verify an ATM customer's identity has yet to penetrate the U.S. banking market because of concerns about expense and privacy....

However, companies that make automated teller machines have found budding markets for the fingerprint technology in South America, where citizens already are accustomed to the use of fingerprints for general identification, such as ID cards they carry.

Diebold Inc. of North Canton, Ohio, has supplied fingerprint-capable ATMs to a bank in Chile that is using them in a pilot project. Last year Dayton, Ohio-based NCR Corp. installed 400 of them in Colombia.

BanCafe, Colombia's fifth-largest bank, bought the ATMs at the end of 2002 for added security for coffee growers and to get them to open accounts. The growers wouldn't need to carry ATM cards, which can be a lure for thieves.

Ricardo Prieto, who was vice president for system operations at BanCafe when the system was installed, said that at first ATMs failed to recognize fingerprints on the well-worn hands of some elderly customers and laborers such as construction workers.

He said the ATM imaging was improved, and the number of customers whose fingerprints couldn't be read fell from 30 percent to 8 percent.

About 230,000 of BanCafe's 1 million customers registered to use the fingerprint ATMs, which account for about 15 percent of the bank's total transactions....

About 350 banks in North America are using Diebold's hand geometry systems to clear customers into vaults so they can open their safe-deposit boxes. At Zions First National Bank in Salt Lake City and South Carolina Federal Credit Union, users place their hands on a screen, which reads the width of the palm, length of the fingers and other points of the hand.

Last year, Suruga Bank Ltd. in Japan began using ATMs that allow customers to access their accounts by holding their palms up to machines that read the pattern of blood vessels....

Systems that scan the iris of the eye are being used at airports in Canada and the Netherlands to check passengers going through customs and at border points in the United Arab Emirates to identify people trying to enter the country with fake work visas. Biometrics are also being used in U.S. airports as part of the "Registered Traveler" program for prescreened flyers....

Connie Steele doesn't believe the technology would add that much more security to the card-and-PIN system.

"If I'm a thief and I've got the card, I still don't have your PIN number, so how could they use it?" said Steele, 57, of West Milton, Ohio....

Never trust anyone over thirty

2005-10-10T17:19:00.000-07:00

Guess who hit the magic number?

As Microsoft hits 30, critics reel off a list of complaints that sounds like, well, a Microsoft commercial: stifling bureaucracy, frustrating miscommunication, different units working on overlapping technology without adequate cooperation. In short, the very ills Microsoft promises to cure with its software....

Of course, no one would argue that the company co-founded by Bill Gates is in dire straits. Microsoft continues to earn billions from its flagship Windows and Office products, and the company is steadily making inroads in markets including mobile phones, video game consoles and server software.

But it isn't just Google and Yahoo that should worry Microsoft.

It's also up-and-comers big and small that offer products as Internet-based services. Salesforce.com, which manages customer relations, is a big one. Writely and gOffice, which provide Web-based word processing, and e-mail application Zimbra are among the small....

This month, Microsoft begins U.S. testing of its own system for selling sponsored links next to its regular search results, which are based on a formula that ranks Web pages according to such factors as relevance.

Microsoft currently outsources that job to Yahoo, which has a contract with Microsoft through June 2006....