Cobb On...Miscellaneous

Google Bug Mis-categorizes Users: The joys of bear-beiting

2007-07-03T08:24:00.000-05:00

You wouldn't know it from where you sit, but I am writing this post in German. I can demonstrate what I mean with an image:

I am actually writing this post in Scotland and I don't sprechen Sie Deutsch. So why are the Blogger menu items in German? The answer is a bug in Google's slightly too clever system for presenting users with geo-appropriate versions of itself and its applications. I first noticed this when visiting England earlier this year. One of my browsers has google.com set as the home page but clicking the Home button in that browser took me to google.co.uk. You might not think that is a problem, but when you search for something like a Sony Viao via google.co.uk you get offered the best deals on Vaios in the UK, which is not what you want if you live in the US and plan to buy your Vaio there (for one thing laptops generally more expensive in the UK, and for another, their keyboards are significantly different from US models).

However, getting the UK version of Google is a relatively minor inconvenience compared to getting the German version, which is what has been happening on my trip to Scotland. And it is not just Google search that is in German. All the Google apps, including Blogger, are in German and so far I have not found a way to 'make' Google sprechen Sie Englisch. What I have found is one explanation for this problem: Google uses the location of the ISP by which you are connecting to the Internet to determine what country you are in. Google then uses the language of that country in its menus. (What Google does in multi-lingual countries like Belgium and Canada I don't know.)

But how does this ISP-language link explain German Google appearing in Scotland? A quick traceroute showed that the ISP used by the hotel at which I am staying is based in Germany. They have a UK company but apparently the main servers are registered in Germany. Apparently the coders at Google had not considered that possibility.

The whole thing is a great example of the huge difference between physical categories and digital categories. Categorizing physical things is challenging. Read David Weinberger’s Everything is Miscellaneous and you realize how tough (for example, I had no idea there were two kinds of indexing specialists known as lumpers and splitters).

Weinberger ably demonstrates that one of the wonders of the web is the way it can break down categories. Search for a book at Amazon or anything on Google and the results will display its many facets. Search for "cycle" and you will see what I mean. Cycles of all kinds pop up: life, the sea, pedal bicycles, motorcycles, and so on. And your media choices include data, images, news, blog posts, etc. However, when you connect to the web you do so from a physical location. Google determines and categorizes that location for you, but not always accurately.

This whole Scottish-German experience has been quite educational. I think I might have found a new way to teach foreign languages. When you use a foreign version of a program that you know well, like Blogger in this case, you quickly recognize and translate foreign words, such as bearbeiten, which means edit. Actually, I'm rather partial to bearbeiten. Sounds much more exciting. Honey, I'll be there in a minute, I just have to do some quick bear biting.
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Is Everything Miscellaneous? It often feels that way

2007-06-24T09:13:00.000-05:00

Do you have a hard time fitting your life into categories? Is it hard to separate work from play, office from home, partying from networking, the obviously relevant from the maybe someday relevant? If so, fear not, apparently you are not alone. For a start, there's me. I'm with you. For several years now it has been getting harder for me to categorize things. At first I thought it was a lack of mental discipline, or laziness, or maybe even the onset of old age.

(Quick, before I forget, an aside about old age and forgetfulness: I recently told my mother that I was concerned because, since I turned fifty, I seem to be forgetting more things. My mother, who is nearly eighty, replied: "Don't be silly, I used to forget loads of things when I was only twenty.)

But this category problem, this blurring of the lines, turns out to be a trend, a sign of the times, as described and discussed is the book Everything is Miscellaneous by David Weinberger, one of the authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto and a Harvard professor with a doctorate in philosophy (but a cheerful way of writing very accessible prose nonetheless). Here's some of the blurb from the book:

Human beings are information omnivores: we are constantly collecting, labeling, and organizing data. But today, the shift from the physical to the digital is mixing, burning, and ripping our lives apart. In the past, everything had its one place--the physical world demanded it--but now everything has its places: multiple categories, multiple shelves. Simply put, everything is suddenly miscellaneous.

And everything includes us. Or at least me. Think about it like this: Try answering the following three questions with a single word:

1. Where are you from?
2. What do you do?
3. Where do you work?

Some people can, but many cannot. My Dad could: Coventry/Engineer/Dunlop. I cannot. As regards question one: I was born and raised in England, but that included a spell in Canada and I have now lived in America for longer than I lived in England. I live in Florida now but also spend quite a bit of time in New York. I lived for more than five years in Scotland (which is different from England) and another five years in San Francisco (which is different from everywhere).

Question two: What I do is information security consulting, and privacy consulting, and film producing, and real estate development, but mainly what I do is write.

Question three: Where I do this stuff is all over. Mainly my office at home but sometimes at a client's office and basically anywhere there is power and bandwidth, which includes planes and trains and automobiles, which are not anywhere but somewhere between two wheres.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying my life is cooler than my Dad's. And I'm exaggerating a little to make my case. My Dad led a very interesting life, having served as an engineer in the Royal Navy during and after World War Two. He worked in Canada and 'the States' for several years before settling in at Dunlop in Coventry (but always as an engineer). And he was exploring new options (in engineering) when his life was tragically cut short at 50. However, I think you get my point. And his father could easily have supplied one word answers, as could my maternal grandfather.

But wait a minute, is this 'personal miscellanitude' merely or solely a result of things going digital? What about increased educational opportunities, fewer borders, greater social and physical mobility, cheap air fares? These have all played a part, as have changes in the workplace ethos, like big companies undermining job security and some of them screwing employees out of pensions (my mother still gets a widow's pension check every month from Dunlop but I know a number of people my age who have already lost pensions).

What I think is happening is that forces at play in the physical world are complementing the effect of digitalization. Infinite varieties of order, individualization of world view, these are possible in the digital world and they are reflected in the real world. If this sounds vaguely familiar from philosophy classes, think Hegel and his use of the term 'reflection.' The digital world initially reflects the physical but evolves according to its own internal reason. And the physical world takes on aspects of the digital, at least in our perception of the physical. It is at least worth considering that we are "being digital" when we feel like previously unrelated things in fact go well together or previously related things have no compelling reason to stay that way.
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Cobb on Stamps? Maybe not, but your puppy will work fine

2007-05-04T10:31:00.000-05:00

So I'm watching BBC America and I see an ad for Photo Stamps with the catch phrase: "Real Postage. Really You."

Yes! You can now print out U.S. out postage stamps with your own photos on them.

Right away I'm thinking great, I can make stamps that express my political opinions through the use of carefully chosen images. And right after that I'm thinking, "No way! They would never let you do that."

A quick trip to the web site confirms it. Here are some of the things you can't put on these stamps that they advertise as "Real Postage. Really You."

"Material that is obscene, offensive, blasphemous, pornographic, sexually suggestive, deceptive, threatening, menacing, abusive, harmful, an invasion of privacy, supportive of unlawful action, defamatory, libelous, vulgar, violent, or otherwise objectionable..."

Most of that is fair enough but "otherwise objectionable" is very broad. What about the photo of the nasty spider bite I got--I'd like to raise awareness of the dangers posed by spiders. Is that objectionable? And wait, there's more that won't be allowed on "your" stamps...

"Material that depicts celebrities or celebrity likenesses, regional, national or international leaders or politicians, current or former world leaders, convicted criminals, newsworthy, notorious or infamous images and individuals, or any material that is vintage in appearance or depicts images from an older era."

What if I myself am notorious? Does that include notorious for always leaving the bar before I buy a round? And what's this opposition to all things "vintage"? Some people think I'm vintage. And it doesn't stop there. Any attempt to push this vague but very tight envelope could cost you:

"If Stamps.com, in its sole discretion, determines that any material you upload may not meet these content requirements, Stamps.com may reject your order without explanation. Stamps.com reserves the right to charge a processing fee of $10.00 for each image, graphic or photograph that you submit as an order which violates our content restrictions."

And don't even think about complaining:

"In addition, in the event you violate these Content Restrictions and you intentionally publicize such violation, you acknowledge that Stamps.com will suffer substantial damage to its reputation and goodwill and that you can be liable for causing such substantial damage."

So, go ahead, express yourself on stamps. With just the right amount of flair. Or else.

p.s. Feel free to use the above photo on your stamps. We're pretty sure it meets the requirements and we hereby release it to the public domain.

Lively up your space with some really coool images

2007-04-27T12:25:00.000-05:00

A new collection of fine art posters based on the amazing photographic talents of Chey Cobb (yes, we are related) is now online at Zazzle. Take a break and check out the miniature art show below. See something you like, click for a closer look, order the size and frame style you need.

Chey's Cobb's Fine Art Posters at Zazzle

Of Beatles, Brits, and the Slave Trade: History gets personal

2007-04-18T10:34:00.000-05:00

If you are a history buff you may know that 2007 is the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Britain. The British might have been big bad imperialists--okay, they were big, bad imperialists--but they had the decency to ban slavery before their American cousins gave it up. (In fact, it was not until 1833 that the ban on slavery took effect throughout the British Empire).

If you are a Beatles fan, and I mean a serious fan, you may know that the street name they made famous --Penny Lane--got its name from a wealthy eighteenth century Liverpool slave ship owner and ardent opponent of abolitionism: James Penny. (Liverpool ships transported half of the 3 million Africans carried across the Atlantic by British slavers.)

I am not for one moment suggesting that, in some weird way, the Beatles supported slavery. Indeed, I think it is safe to say all four of them were strongly opposed to racial discrimination of any kind and, through their music, did much to promote themes of equality and racial integration. What I am saying is that slavery was woven into the fabric of British life and, to this day, Britain reaps lingering benefits from past slavery. For example, it is my belief that the benefits of an affluent society that I enjoyed while growing up there came, in some part, from slavery.

When you look at England, a country much smaller than Greece or Romania, then look at the one fifth of the world's land surface that was called the British Empire, you have to wonder how they did that (I'm using England rather than Britain in this statement because the Scots and Welsh and Irish probably don't want to be included when it comes to the nastier aspects world domination carried out in their name).

You have to wonder where such a small country got the means to achieve that much power and influence. Okay, so Sir Francis Drake and his like made good money stealing treasure from the the Spanish conquistadors (who had stolen it from the people of Central and South America) but a big chunk of the wealth that funded the expansion of the empire was derived from the slave trade.

Which helps explain several things, including an entire web site devoted to marking the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery. I encourage you to visit this site. It also explains the depth of sorrow expressed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York when they led a procession through London to mark the 200th anniversary of Britain's abolition of the slave trade. It may even explain why someone like me, born and raised in England but now living in America, feels drawn to issues of racial equality.
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Wallhogs Rock: Where were you in the seventies?

2007-03-28T15:15:00.000-05:00

What are Wallhogs and why do they rock? Read on gentle reader...

Recently I got an email from an enterprising young man I happen to know from a previous enterprise of my own, ePrivacy Group. His name is Kendall Schoenrock and he is one of those young people who were born to do business. I think he became a licensed real estate agent when he was 18 or something crazy like that. I know he still owns and maintains various residential and commercial properties. He worked a Budweiser delivery route in college, got his MBA from Villanova at an early age and, despite several other opportunities, chose to join, and invest in, ePrivacy Group. And this was at a time when it was the very definition of "a long shot."

When I watched him work ePrivacy Group's booth at ISPCON 2003 [I think it was that year] you could tell he was a natural pitch man, cheerfully engaging prospects in conversation, happily enthusing about a technology--SpamSquelcher--in which he believed [with good reason as it turns out, given that Symantec paid $28 million for it about a year later].

After selling SpamSquelchers for Symantec for a while [under the name TurnTide and later the Symantec 8100] Kendall struck out on his own and mucked around for a while seeking a fresh challenge. That's when he found Wallhogs.

Wallhogs are basically big plastic pictures you can put on a wall then later peel off and put on a different wall, as in dorm room wall, apartment wall, office wall. Check them out at wallhogs.com.

A variety of images are already available from which to choose, but one of the coolest features of the site is the ability to upload your own image and have it not only blown up, but cropped. So your photo of young Timmy making that great catch in softball can be cropped to just Timmy, then printed five feet tall if you like (presumably with some clever interpolation algorithm).

Of course, the basic technology of "apply to wall then remove and apply to some other wall" is also very cool. I could have used this back in the day when I was at university. I had about half a dozen posters that got moved from flat to flat in Leeds, serious expressions of my personally at the time, which got tattered at the corners from frequent application and removal of tape. Whether you want a blissful four foot wide sunset above your bed, or a funky art photo above your sink, Wallhogs has you covered. Even if you have to switch dorm rooms in a hurry.
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Still Confused About US v. EU DST? Maybe this will help you

2007-03-11T16:58:00.001-05:00

I made a small chart to help me with this problem of the time change changes between the US and the EU. I am working on a project for a British company right now and traveling between the US and the UK so I wanted a quick way to check when the time in London will be 4 versus 5 hours difference.

I printed it out small enough to fit in my wallet. Don't know if this makes me sound memory-deficient, but I am finding it really hard to keep track of this one.

I am certainly not looking forward to the week in the Fall where London will be 6 hours different. Or next Spring when the shift will last for three weeks.

At least I got all my hardware upgrades to handle the switch.

New Daylight Saving Time: Differences from US to EU and back

2007-02-10T17:47:00.001-05:00

As you probably know by now, there will be a significant number of days this year in which the normal time differences between the US and the EU will be different (yep, time difference differences--makes you wish for a Difference Engine--sorry, geek joke).

For example, New York is normally 5 hours behind London. But it will be just 4 hours behind for some days in the Spring, and 6 hours behind for some days in the Fall.

Well, here is a good site for tracking this, and settling arguments with co-workers. It even let's you check the change dates out to 2099.

And for those who want to be really technical, note that EU countries don't change their clocks at 2AM like we do in America, they change them at 1AM Universal Time.

The Amazing Electric Loo: Now that's technology!

2007-02-04T23:45:00.000-05:00

Sometimes a picture is worth more than a thousand words. On the left you see the amazing electric loo that I encountered upon checking into my hotel in Seoul, Korea. The entire room was very high tech with remotes for everything (TV, lighting, DVD, VHS, heating/AC, etc).

And then I went to the loo. Wow! Not only is it electric, it has 12 buttons. A geek's commode if ever I saw one.

There was one slight problem (for me, not for Koreans, obviously). I had no idea what the buttons did. I'm not complaining. Just about everything else in the room was labeled in English as well as Korean. But not the commode control pad.

So, like any intrepid explorer (and all geeks and hackers are at heart intrepid explorers) I decided to just push some buttons. I just stood there, leaned down, and picked one at random. At which point a probe extended from inside the loo and sprayed me in the face. I am not making this up (and trying not to fall for cheap shots like "I s**t you not!"). So, I pushed some more buttons until the spray stopped, After I had dried myself off--and this is perhaps what intrepid means--I tried it again, from a sitting position. Much better! In fact, and I'm not sure of the polite say this, this thing washes, rinses and blow dries. No TP required!

New Year is Here: So is new daylight saving timing

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

Here's a good trivia question to ask your friends? When does Daylight Saving Time begin in 2007?

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

With just about everything we use today running on some kind of software, a lot of which is date-sensitive, the probability of a miniature Y2K event in 2007 is definitely not zero. And guess what? Congress has the right to change DST back to the way it was if they don't like these new dates.

Personally, just personally, I have never liked DST and think it is more trouble than it is worth. This would seem to prove my point. About the only change worth making to the dates that have existed unchanged for the last 20 years in America would have been to bring us in line with the Europeans (see the table here). But noooo, Bush had to be different-er.

BTW, check my technology blog for word on updating Windows XP and other software to handle this change.
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Biggar Bonfire Postponed! Catch it January 1

2006-12-31T23:27:00.001-05:00

Here's hoping 2007 is a great year for you and yours!

In the spirit of the season, below is a link to The Biggar Bonfire, a weird and wonderful New Year event we enjoyed when we lived in Scotland. This year the bonfire was postponed until January 1 due to 70 mph winds.

The good news is, you may still catch it today--via their webcam--at about 4:30 Eastern on New Year's Day. Here's the main link:
http://www.biggarbonfire.org.uk/
Here's the webcam (with chat room where ex-pats and bonfire afficianados from around the world congregate):
http://scottiepete.camstreams.com/
And check out related events and history here:
http://www.hogmanay.net/
Basically, in Biggar, since time immemorial, the locals have parade up the main road (which is blocked to through traffic for the evening) carrying big torches, urged on by the sound of bagpipes. Then they light this huge bonfire that eventually gets so hot you have to retreat to the far side of the town square. The bus shelter used to melt, until they moved it. Carousing and piping continues well into the next day. They used to bake potatoes and sausages in the embers for breakfast. Not sure if the fire department still allows that. Both January 1 and 2 are national holidays in Scotland to help folk recuperate.

Happy New Year!

Years and Years of Dilbert

2006-12-30T14:43:00.001-05:00

Just stumbled on a page from which you can read any Dilbert strip without ads or complicated navigation buttons. You just click forward and back through dates, or edit the URL to get to a target date. For those who want a trip down memory lane or have a LOT of time to kill in cube land.

Who's in the Holiday Spirit? New Year and Boxing Day should be honored

2006-12-26T11:32:00.000-05:00

I'm not a Christian. But I give to the poor at Christmas. And I say Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Have a Great Boxing Day!

I was again amazed this year at how many people whined about the whole "Put the Christ back in Christmas" thing. I mean, it's not like those six letters, c-h-r-i-s-t were being removed.

Okay, I guess some people take exception to the use of Xmas instead of Christmas. But that's just dumb since the choice of the letter X is not random. Clearly X = cross = Christ. It's just an abbreviation (think fish on the back of the car). If you can use a fish for Jesus, surely you can use Xmas for his birthday.

If folks feel our society has truly lost sight of the real meaning of the winter holidays, they should be chanting "Put the Christmas back in Winter Holidays." That's right, Winter HolidayS, plural. There is more than one.

Apart from Hanukkah. there's New Year's Day and Boxing Day and Hogmanay. There's a whole season of winter holidays, hence the term "Happy Holidays." Duh! That almost like shorthand for "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and have a good Boxing Day while you're at it."

Boxing Day is a formal holiday in England and several other countries (a coalition of those willing to relax on the day after Christmas and count their blessings instead of assault the mall in a quest of more).

New Year's Day and the day after that are formal holidays in Scotland (by formal I mean the banks are closed, etc.). I vote that America adopt all of these. And accept that there's not much Christ in them. If you have ever celebrated the New Year in Scotland you will know that it is NOT a religious holiday (and yes, I am aware of the etymology of 'holiday'). There is a definite and frankly undisguised pre-Christian, i.e. pagan, aspect to the celebration. An example? Check out the Biggar Bonfire, now on the web!

As for Boxing Day, my personal favorite, there is some Christ in it (it is also St. Stephen's Day and St. Stephen was the first Christian martyr). And a leading contender for the origin of the name of the holiday is the idea that people box up their leftovers and give them to the poor, which is a fine Christian notion. But Christians don't have a lock on charity. A lot of non-Christian belief systems compel people to give to the poor. Heck, if you had to sign a form saying you were Christian before you could donate to the thousands of causes that receive massive charitable donations at this time of year, I bet the numbers would drop dramatically.

I'm not a Christian. But I give to the poor at Christmas. And I say Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Have a Great Boxing Day!

Catalogue Craziness: 13 per day is just too much

2006-12-07T18:48:00.000-05:00

Right now we are getting an average of 13 catalogues in the mail every day. What a waste! We hardly look at them. We usually just toss them in the trash.

Yesterday we got back from a Thanksgiving vacation and found the accumulated mail from 10 delivery days included 131 catalogues, that's over 35 pounds of paper. Harder to delete than spam.

Is there no way to stop these from coming, other than writing to each and every one of the 131 senders (okay, some senders sent more than one, but it is still about 80 different entities that are doing this).

Fizzing Ahead of the Curve: Berocca finally getting noticed

2006-12-05T09:24:00.000-05:00

Twenty-one years ago, as I was heading off on a transatlantic trip, my wife handed me a metal tube of fizzy tablets and said "Take these with you." Ever since then I have carried these tablets--called Berocca--with me on most of my travels across time zones. Take one Berocca tablet, drop it into a glass of water, and you can:

replenish your vitamins,
settle your stomach,
turn nasty hotel water into a reasonably tasty fizzy drink.

But I have always been mystified as to why you can't buy Berocca in America (I buy mine when I visit family in England or order over the web from New Zealand). Finally, the New York Times is taking notice. Hopefully, the fact that some people take Berocca for a hangover will not dissuade Bayer from selling them in the land of the Puritans.

The Most Fun on Four Wheels? Artic Cat ATV Tough to Beat

2006-12-04T17:29:00.000-05:00

First off, let me say that I should be wearing a helmet, but some complex risk assessment told me it was better to wear my safety orange hat and avoid being shot by deer hunters than protect my head from branches (or a fall) with the helmet. Maybe an orange helmet should be my next ATV-related purchase.

I am grinning because I have just negotiated "Suicide Drive" which is one of the trails on our property in upstate New York. I will post a picture of it as soon as I figure out how to take a shot that shows just how steeply it rises from the back of the cabin going about 200 feet almost straight up (okay, not 90 degrees to the horizontal, but I'm going to say 45, at least it feels like that--I will get out the inclinometer next time).

For those who have not tried an All Terrain Vehicle, these things are a blast. Mine is a 400 c.c. Arctic Cat with 4-wheel drive and a mini-pickup bed behind the seat (you can just make out the chain saw in there, useful for clearing trees that have fallen over and blocked the trail).

We purchased this machine at Performance Recreation of Richfield Springs. You couldn't ask for a better dealer. The help and support we have had from them is fantastic. From helping us choose the right machine for our needs, to basic riding lessons, delivery, and super prompt attention to the one minor problem we have had so far (now fixed, no charge, free same-day pickup and delivery). If you are looking for an ATV or snowmobile and are within 100 miles of these guys, it is worth the trip.

The Arctic Cat web site requires IE but is still worth visiting. And their mail catalogues are stuffed with cool accessories. I have a winch which has already proved to be a very good investment. Next up is probably a shotgun/rifle scabbard and rails for the pickup bed to hold more wood. In the meantime I plan to cut some fresh trails to explore the old stone walls we have found. This machine can take you absolutely anywhere if you take it slow and easy, letting you park and explore places you would probably never see if you had to hike in there on foot. Then, when you feel like a kinesthetic kick, find a smooth trail and open her up. By the time you reach 25 m.p.h. you will feel like you are flying.

Ubuntu Moves On

2006-12-03T17:05:00.000-05:00

The rest of my experiences with Ubuntu will be appearing on "Cobb on Tech" which is also located on Blogspot at cobbontech.blogspot.com along with other tech stuff.

See you there!

Could Ubuntu Be Too Cute?

2006-11-15T11:06:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I was able to boot my IBM from the Ubuntu 6.10 CD, thus getting an impressive preview of what Ubuntu offers should I decide to install it on the hard drive. But getting to that point was not as easy as I may have made it sound. And my experiences since then have raised a number of issues. In other words, all is not perfect in Ubuntu-land. As with many things in life, it is all about perception v. reality.

Ubuntu has strived to create a warm, fuzzy, "fun-and-easy-to-use" image. Now, even at this early stage of our relationship, I am prepared to accept that it is a warmer, fuzzier, funner, and easier Linux than those I have tried in the past. But...I did have to download two different versions of Ubuntu to find the one that worked nicely, which was 6.10 (the same hardware just stalled when trying to boot from 6.06). And I spent quite a bit of time failing to boot two older machines with either 6.06 or 6.1o (more on that later).

In the process I found you don't have to look far to see the geek beneath the gloss at ubuntu,com. For example, one of the suggestions for those having problems with the install is to use Knoppix. It goes something like: "Grab the latest debootstrap_*.tar.gz from [WWW] http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/d/debootstrap/ ...Save the archive into the /home/knoppix/tmp directory because /tmp is probably too small...Uncompress and extract the archive...then cd into the newly created directory and build the program."

This is very useful technical information and I mean no disrespect to the authors, who are clearly driven by the best of intentions, but it is not warm and fuzzy. I can see your 'average user' giving up at this point. Granted, this advice appears in the "Advanced" section, but the non-advanced section is pretty short on answers to questions like "what to do if you start the install and the machine just sits there churning all night with a blank screen." Recourse to posting in the support forums is quite likely if you run into install issues. The good news there is that answers come pretty quick, as I hope to relate in my next post on Ubuntu.

Now, to briefly address just one of the questions Dave raised in his comment on my last Ubuntu post, my IBM NetVista P4HT booted to the Ubuntu graphical desktop in exactly 2 minutes. Considering that this is booting from a CD, not a hard drive, I think it is impressive. After all, one of the big attractions of Ubuntu is that, if it does boot from the free CD you burned from the download or requested from the web site, you can test drive the OS and the apps on your hardware before doing an install. And I mean really test drive, like surf the web over your internet connection and play your music CDs (if you have a second CD drive). Now that is impressive.

Windows Patches Definitely Ditch Data

2006-11-15T10:58:00.000-05:00

I have now confirmed, at my expense, that Windows security updates DO destroy data. I wrote about this before and it happened again.

How? The update process restarts your system without your consent. You come back from a cup of coffee and there is the BIOS login. Your XP machine has rebooted. Word has NOT created backups of your latest edits. The notes you had typed in a Notepad document are NOT saved unless you hit "Save" before you went for coffee.

So, the lesson here is an old one: Save everything before you leave your machine unattended. Sound advice that I should have been heeding. But really? In this day and age shouldn't we be able to trust our OS not to screw with our work?

About the only good news is that the latest version of Firefox DOES remember all of the pages you were looking at before XP closed it down.

Ubuntu Arrivesl Boots Well and Looks Good

2006-11-14T17:49:00.000-05:00

In glorious technicolor on my 19 inch hi-res Princeton monitor, booted from a CD-rom on an IBM NetVista. This was indeed an impressive introduction. Took just moments to boot with no complaints. The picture here is actually a photo of the screen, showing a word processor, spreadsheet, music player and video player, all of which are included in the Ubuntu package. (Click image for slightly larger version.)

Of course, it could never be that easy, right? So in my next post I will document some obstacles to avoid if you want your first experience of Ubuntu to be a smooth one.

Windows XP Nits, Microsoft Peeves, Flips and Flaps

2006-11-14T16:25:00.000-05:00

Okay, we interrupt the exploration of Ubuntu (which is going very well) to list a few "issues" that I have with Windows XP:

Drop to DOS: The very useful ability to "drop to DOS" is not a TweakUI thing, it is a Power Tool thing, as described and accessed here at microsoft.com. This is something I like to install on my Windows machines as it gives you quick DOS-style access to the directory of your choice (e.g. when you want to rename a bunch of files at once, or use XCOPY). But I tend to forget when you get this tool and in my Google searches seem to find numerous places where this feature is erroneously ascribed to the TweakUI tool. Oh well, for future reference, the link above is where it's at.
Control-Tab: Should switch documents in Microsoft Word. Refusing to change this is just churlish. In just about every other Windows app you can press Ctrl-Tab to switch between multiple documents/windows. But not in Word because it does a special tab function. Get over it Redmond and instead of messing about everyone but Word users, let them learn one new keystroke.
Indicate Save: Would it kill Microsoft to gray out the Save command on the File menu when a Word or Excel document is already saved? Without it you don't know which version of the doc is saved--the one you think you just saved or a changed version.
Impossible Dream: There is probably no chance of this happening but the Save command, IMHO, should never complete without a confirmation. So much work gets lost because people hit Save and overwrite what they want to keep with what is on the screen right now. Could well be more than viruses and brownouts combined. Back in the day, those crusty but trusty apps like Lotus 1-2-3 would ask first before saving. that;s the way it should be.

Ubuntu Here We Come: The OS du jour is served

2006-11-13T17:22:00.000-05:00

I may be the last person on the planet to have heard the word "ubuntu," but in the next few weeks I am going to try to make up for it. Just in case there is anyone else out there who doesn't know what ubuntu is--apart from being an African word meaning "humanity to others"--it is an incarnation of the Linux operating system, an alternative to Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac OSX.

For me, Ubuntu, capitalized from hereon to indicate a product rather than a word, is also a feeling of deja vu. Over the years I have installed various versions of Linux starting back in about 1995, including Slackware, Red Hat, Debian, Novell, Knoppix, and Sun. But none of these became my OS of choice for daily computing. So time would pass, during which I was not really paying attention to Linux, and then *boom* some new incarnation, of which I had never heard, would be all the rage, leaving me feeling just a little bit "out of the loop."

And so it was with Ubuntu. Suddenly I am seeing it on magazine covers, in blog postings, magazine articles, news stories, etc. And once again I am tempted to test the waters and see if this thing is worth all the hype. Clearly it would seem to be worth the money as it doesn't cost anything. That's right. You don't even have to pay for the bandwidth to download it. The folks at ubuntu.com will actually mail you a CD. That's right, an entire operating system and suite of applications sent to your door, free of charge. Could that be why it is "The most popular desktop of Linux today" according to Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols' excellent article in desktoplinux.com?

Next up, I will play "Mr. Average User" to test the claim that Ubuntu is a "Linux for the rest of us."

Keep Google Earth Rocking

2006-11-09T12:18:00.000-05:00

I am a fairly recent 'discoverer' of Google Earth but it has quickly become my favorite non-work application. Call me easily amused but I love 'playing' the trip between my house in Florida, my Mum's place in England and my brother's place in Spain.

Now I have started to explore the Google Earth community and the enhancements people are making to the raw data. This is fascinating in a way that goes before mere fun. I have a strong sense that it is not merely educational, but exploratory. We humans are 'learning on the job' when it comes to geo-spatial self-awareness and what it means for the future of our planet. Try it! You'll like it. And the more people try it, the better the data will become.

The Age of the Domesticated Terabyte is Here

2006-11-08T22:46:00.000-05:00

Two computer hardware ads hit my in-basket today offering consumer-oriented storage capacity of such an amazing price-to-volume ratio that it may represent a new stage of digital evolution: the domestication of the terabyte. One ad featured a desktop PC with a terabyte of hard drive capacity (via a pair of 500 gigabyte SATA drives) for under $2,000. The other ad featured a one terabyte external USB drive for under $500.

To put this in perspective, I can remember driving out of San Francisco one day in 1986 just to get the unbeatable cash price of $300 on a 30 megabyte hard drive, from the back office of an obscure industrial unit in Sunnyvale. And I thought myself lucky!

No, I won't lapse into a geek's version of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, but just ponder for a moment the difference between the cost per megabyte then and now. In 1986 it was $10.00 a megabyte. Today, based on the $200 price tag of a half-a-terabyte SATA drive (from Tiger Direct for example) the cost of one megabyte is $0.0004. Heck, if you play the rebate game at eCost.com right now you can get 1 gigabyte of of postage-stamp size solid state storage for $0.004 per megabyte. Only need half a gigabyte? That's free, all but for the shipping and handling.

But it is the sub-$500 terabyte external hard drive that really tells you the gigabytes have come home to roost by the thousand. Just a year ago one blogger was making fun of LaCie's introduction of the Big Disk 1TB under the heading "LaCie 1 Terabyte USB Porn Drive." I'm not taking issue with Steve for that posting, and I love the site, but what a difference a year makes.

I'm tempted to get one of these thing and no, I won't be using it for porn. After all, there are family values to think of, and it's not unusual to find families today that have one computer each: Mum, Dad, and the 2.5 kids. A terabyte external drive would let each one back up 222 gigabytes. That's about the amount of storage built into an entry-level desktop and just over twice what you get in a new notebook. What are people using it for? Music, photos, and video. Lots of it.

Mobile Blogging from a Treo 650

2006-11-08T22:21:00.001-05:00

Checking in from my Treo 650.

Yep, mobile blogging comes to Blogger. At first I thought this would be a big yawn. After all, one has been able to email blog postings to some blog systems for years. But I like Blogger more than other systems and this new feature lets me text a posting to Blogger (with image if I want) in very short order, right from my trusty Treo. When I get a chance I will test the formatting possibilities of this channel, which are obviously limited (I added the title after the fact, via the web). Despite these limitations I think I will be using this channel quite a bit.

Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com

My Friend the Treo 650

2006-11-04T18:07:00.001-05:00

I have said it before and have said it elsewhere, but I will say it again, the Treo 650 is the best hi-tech purchase I have ever made, and the best computer I have ever owned (it does input-output-storage-processing ergo it is a computer).

What prompts me to say this right now? I dropped it. Again. Getting out of my pickup it fell onto a concrete parking lot. And just like last time it sustained a few scratches but kept on ticking. As an object of visual beauty it is now up there with the dented Leica of a famed photographer, the well-worn axe of a working guitarist. I now use my Treo 650 as twelve tools in one:

1. Alarm clock (playing one of the many great polyphonic tunes this thing can produce).

2. Flashlight (the screen is bright enough to find your way around a hotel room in the dark).

3. Camera (for all sorts of shots, notably evidence and possible shopping decisions--like a shot of a PC on sale at Circuit City, including model number and price--no typing required).

4. My diary/mustdo reminder, handily coordinated with my notebook computer...recently found to be very handy for birthday reminders as I am trying to be better about getting people cards, etc.

5. Casual reading (mainly news from the BBC while standing in line or sitting in a waiting room).

6. Emailing (I like the thumb keyboard and often catch up on email while flying, sending the messages out as soon as we land).

7. Texting (not a medium I love, but Treo handles it just fine when needed, including MMS).

8. Dictation (Palm Dictate works great--can dictate memos while driving and the sound is very acceptable).

9. MP3 playing (I have a collection of SD cards containing different mixes I can switch in and out--great for plane trips--and the same cards will work nicely in my truck once I get a radio with a USB socket).

10. GPS--just got a Bluetooth GPS puck and am learning to use it. Screen display does a great job of rendering maps.

11. Blogging--just getting this set up but should allow me to blog while travelling, etc..

12. As a phone--yes, it is also a phone and has great talk time and standby time. Truly excellent battery life in fact. The ease of adding contacts means it is now my central repository for people, companies, etc.

The Picco Z Micro Helicopter

2006-11-04T14:30:00.000-05:00

Just got one of these from a good buddy for my birthday. Seems like Radio Shack is the place to buy them (don't pay more than $40). What you get for your money is a miracle of miniaturization, a tiny helicopter that actually flies, in my case around the living room. There is a plenty of cool video of these things on YouTube. It will fly for about 5 minutes before recharging, which is done with a cable from the controller box (which contains 8 x AA batteries). The box lets you know when the charge is complete (about 20 minutes). Although 5 minutes might not sound like long, it is plenty of fun as controlling the flight takes quite a bit of practice (besides how far can you go in a living room). This thing is surprising resistant to damage even when you crash terribly. Here you can see its size in relation to a regular check book.

Seagate Service Impresses

2006-10-07T13:41:00.000-05:00

My how hardware support has changed. Used to be that when a hard drive died it was just hard luck; but recently I experienced problems with a Seagate hard drive that proves things have become much closer to the way they should be.

The drive is a 250 gigabyte Barracuda 7200.8 that I bought some time ago ago when I saw it on sale somewhere (the vagueness is intentional, as you will see). I must have figured I would eventually use it as an external drive to archive files. Well, the eventual day came yesterday and I plugged it into a USB drive enclosure. I plugged that into my main desktop machine, an IBM ThinkCentre P4HT, and fired it up. Everything worked fine.

(BTW, the IBM is now a Lenovo and I am pleased to report that the excellent IBM online support appears to have transitioned nicely to the new company, with lots of information about my system available at the click of a button.)

The Seagate drive formatted fine and I started to copy some files over. All went well but there was an occassional high-pitched click, barely audible, and only traceable to the Seagate drive by using a handy paper ear cone (old car mechanic trick). I figured it was no big deal and began a large copy operation [about 180 gigabytes] from a Maxtor USB drive to the Seagate. Next morning I checked the copy operation and it had completed successfully, but the Seagate drive was now making a sound much closer to the dreaded "katink katink" that can herald a drive failure.

Aaaargh! I had no recollection of where or when I bought the drive. How would I be able to exercise my warranty rights? Was the warranty still good? I surfed to Seagate support onthe web and clicked on Warranty. Wow! With a few keystrokes I had confirmed, via serial number, that the warranty was still in place (Barracuda's appear to come with a reassuring 5 year warranty). Furthermore, I was offered a chance to check out the drive's status via a web page. One Active-X control later, a basic check had reported a healthy drive. But a more intense check was offered. I launched it and was soon told the drive was damaged. Not only that, an automated return process was initiated right there.

I was given the option to send in the drive and get a replacement, or pay a modest fee and get a replacement before I sent in the bad drive (the bad drive going back in the prepaid box that came with the new drive). If the drive had been mission-critical I would have used the paid option and thought it good value for money. As it was, I figured I could save a few bucks and just send in the damaged drive. I did that and got a replacement in short order. Kudos to Seagate for making the painful as painless as possible.

Alice Smith CD

2006-09-11T09:33:00.000-05:00

Wow, that's some funky stuff. The woman has talent and a very cool groove. Impressive pipes on "I Do." And I love the funky breaks, even trumpets. I swear there is some Arthur Lee influence in there. Thanks to my grrrl Summer for turning me on to this artist.

BTW, does anyone know why the audio and video on MySpace is so good? What technology are they using? The trailer for 'our movie' plays better there than on the official web site.

So I Got Distracted

2006-07-22T09:19:00.000-05:00

Life does have a tendency to intervene sometimes. Here is a quick list of items about which I plan to post more detailed opinions in the near future:

Jeep Liberty Diesel - Good, but why aren't there more of then and why the heck does New York State ban them?
Region Code Hacked Toshiba DVD - Cheap, easy and works great.
Sony Wega Plasma TV - Expensive, complex, and for some viewing works not so great, but when it does work: Wow! When watching HBO's Deadwood in high def you worry that the main street mud might splash onto your living room rug.
Treo 650 - My constant companion and more rugged than you would think, with great battery life and a backlight so bright I use it as a flashlight when navigating my hotel room in the dark.
Marriott Hotels - Highly reliable and honest to boot.
Direcway Satelitte Internet - Works way better than dialup and may be the only alternative to POTS for some rural locations. But there are some kinks, like periodic sluggishness. May get better now it has made the transition to HughesNet.
Extended Range Wifi - Now practical, even on a budget--we now serve our neighbors with a 500 foot link across the marsh using one of these Backfire antennas.
Home Made Heart Monitor - A cheap way to let your doctor hear your heart (plans to follow).

So, with apologies for my tardiness, I will go off and start writing.

Stephen

Opinions Aplenty

2005-10-29T21:26:00.000-05:00

I am starting this blog as a place to park my opinions on consumer goods and services, everything from Amtrak to Zeus knows what. I am intrigued by the possibility that, through the sharing of my opinions, I might help other people make good decisions or avoid bad ones.