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The FuzzyBlog!
Marketing 101. Consulting 101. PHP Consulting. Random geeky stuff. I Blog Therefore I Am.
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Saturday, September 21, 2002 |
Licensing Tools for PHP
Very Cool. Not for me (yet) since it's generally better for me to give stuff away but very cool if you are trying to sell PHP code.
The first electronic licensing solution for the PHP marketplace, combined with the encoding solution that pioneered PHP intellectual property protection. Zend SafeGuard Suite enables software vendors to maximize profitability with intellectual property protection and software license management.
...
More
11:07:01 AM Google It! 
IM Me About This
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Great CSS Tip from Scott Andrew
This has to be one of the coolest CSS effects I've seen in a long time. Thanks Simon for pointing it out. And it even works in Opera, Mozilla and IE (at least 5.5 and later). Very, very, very cool.
A few people have asked how the navigation bar headers on this site are done. It's a trick I adapted from CSS pro Eric Meyer's site. The headers are H2 elements with a special class itemhead applied. Here's the important stuff: h2.itemhead
{
display:inline;
position:relative;
top:-18px;
... (go see it for the rest)
More (scroll down to the September 17th, "Neat Trick" entry since there doesn't seem to be real permalinks)
11:02:41 AM
IM Me About This
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Ok. Apokalyptik is Losing It (Geek Humor)
Oh my, I think perhaps the days of recovering an entire data center has warped my buddies brain:
(to the beat of labamba)
I need to boot ATAPI!
I need to boot ATAPI!
Installing linux, any good distrobution!
... (and a whole lot more)
ROFLOL (roll on floor laughing out loud)
10:58:23 AM Google It!
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Friday, September 20, 2002 |
Blogitecture Revisited
A week or two ago I referenced re-architecting this blog into one master blog (this one) with everything and several topical blogs. As with everything, things take longer than you'd like but with a little help from Lawrence Lee of UserLand (thanks man) I have a good start on it. If you want a preview of what this looks like then see:
http://www.hightechmarketing101.com/
All these sub blogs will be done with Radio so you can even access a specific RSS feed like this:
http://www.hightechmarketing101.com/rss.xml
I've pretty much done the Radio theme for this blog although I need to add my blog roll of course and a few other things (like add a search engine). Still it's a good preview of what's to come. Leave me comments here, pro or con, comments on the theme (courtesy of the wonderful Bryan Bell), etc. Thanks.
6:58:12 AM Google It!
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Pictures of the Day
A Sandy Day - 1
A Sandy Day - 2
It'll be a slow day here today as I'm out doing some personal business. But, if you are looking for a really good laugh, go here and do what he says about Google (or just use this link Do It. The 1st and 6th responses are hilarious). Bala's a smart guy and it's worth checking out his blog.
6:12:13 AM Google It!
IM Me About This
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If You Live in Massachusetts and Have AT&T Digital Broadband
My broadband service has been intermittently up and down since roughly 2:00 today. I just spoke with AT&T Broadband technical support who:
- Confirmed that there was scheduled maintenance.
- Said "We don't know when it will be up".
- When I asked about a rebate for the down time, they told me that "If you call back within 24 hours then we will credit you for the down time". I asked "I have to call back for this?". Answer: "Yes".
What utter and complete hogwash and bullsh*t. There is absolutely no reason on god's green earth why I have to call back for the rebate -- AT&T is the one doing the maintenance. They know what homes are affected just by analyzing the maintenance logs. So apparently the new rule of thumb for AT&T is "If you don't notice that we don't provide what you pay for then you still get charged for it".
FCC ? Hello ? Regulators ? Can you buy a clue ? In the immortal words of Pink Floyd: "Is there anybody out there? Is there anybody home?"
Absolutely pathetic.
Oh and here's the number to call for the rebate:
866 447 7333
But you need to be prepared for a variety of annoying and pathetic phone delays before you'll get thru to a person. Swearing at the voice mail system loudly and vociferously is recommended. Swearing at the customer service representative is not.
3:43:47 AM Google It!
IM Me About This
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Insomnia...
Ah, yes. My old friend Insomnia has come back to visit. How my I blog thee? Let me count the ways. This would be one. Another post would be two. And so on. I guess these past few days of sleeping 6 and 7 continuous hours has been just a tease.
PS -- there's something just plain not fair about having Insomnia and then discovering that you have no outbound connectivity. Nothing like a) Not having DNS and b) Not getting farther than your ISP's gateway. Computing with only local resources these days is like sex with your clothes on -- possible but not a lot of fun.
2:26:36 AM Google It!
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Thursday, September 19, 2002 |
Linux Journal for $12 Per Year!
I don't know if they verify but I'll bet they don't. I just got his email:
We’re sorry, but you were not selected as a winner in the NuSphere Linux Journal Caribbean Cruise Sweepstakes. But don’t forget, ALL registrants will receive a special 50% off subscription offer for 12 issues of Linux Journal resulting in a discounted price of only $12US ($18US Canadian residents), by calling 1-888-66-Linux and mentioning "NuSphere." Discount cannot be combined with any prize awarded under this contest or any other promotional offer sponsored by NuSphere or Linux Journal.
Thank you again for your interest in NuSphere and Linux Journal.
Mark Lorion
Director of Marketing
NuSphere Corporation
www.nusphere.com
1:13:06 PM Google It!
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Microsoft Security Hole -- Again
I don't even feel like bitching about it again:
Microsoft released an advisory Wednesday night warning all users of its Windows operating system of two new critical flaws that could allow a attacker to take control of a victim's PC.
The critical flaws occur in the software giant's implementation of the Java Virtual Machine, which allows platform-independent programs to run on a PC.
"(The flaws) could enable an attacker to gain complete control over a user’s system," stated the advisory. "This would enable the attacker to perform any operation that the user could, such as running applications; communicating with web sites; (and) adding, deleting or changing data."
News.com Please see previous bitches here:
I've blogged several other issues with security recently but that's enough. Two in one week: Do I Need a Life ? Or does Microsoft need a clue?
9:01:55 AM Google It!
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Marketing 101: Thoughts On Choosing a Domain Name
From Inluminent, a few thoughts on choosing a domain name. I'd add one point to this comments: Is it easy to spell. Just as example, whenever I want to go to Demitrious' web site, www.apokalyptik.com, I have to really think about it. Don't get me wrong -- Demitrious is cool and so is his domain name but at least I have a hard time with it. I'd also argue that as Jakob says, urls should be human readable and typable --- and this is more important than ever. I mean if your domain name isn't easily typable, how many potential blog cross references will it cost you? What's the value of that? If you don't make things easy for people then they generally don't do them (yes -- that's an opinion but facts seem to bear it out).
8:28:35 AM Google It!
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Marketing 101: Good versus Bad PR
From Inluminent:
I read this story today, about Virgin Atlantic Airways having to replace all of their mother and baby room table because passengers are using them to join the elusive 'mile high club' and thought to myself "is that good or bad PR?"
More ...
Too damn funny. Given Richard Branson's public image, you wouldn't expect this type of thing. I guess he's getting old. That's just plain sad.
8:02:02 AM Google It!
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Wednesday, September 18, 2002 |
Favorite Blog of the Week: Inluminent!
Even though it's only Wednesday, I'm going to still say that my favorite blog of the week has to be Inluminent. I've been meaning to mention it for some time and have been just a wee bit scatter brained because of other things going on for me in the non - blogosphere (surprisingly, even I do leave the keyboard albeit rarely at times, and, no, my personal life remains deprecatedl; not that type of stuff). Anyway John is doing just plan a bang up job of blogging all kinds of interesting stuff but mostly in the "I'm starting a business" and "online business" area.
Like me he also trys to pitch in when some larger issues loom. His post on Amazon's Big Brother nature is worth reading. Apparently Amazon's Alexa Spyware is now included in IE 6 -- but you aren't notified of it. That's just plain wrong.
Anyway, go visit Inluminent now.
5:59:24 PM Google It!
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Consulting 101: How Do I Market Myself as a New Consultant
This article is in response to an email from a reader. Here's the question:
I have been working towards establishing my own Consulting Business for some time now and have done several contracts over the past few years. I would like to focus on consulting and up to this point have not really found the best way to market myself.
The area I would like to target is Manufacturing/Industrial Engineering in the automotive industry. I have made some contacts but the contracts I have landed have been through "headhunters" and I know there are choice contracts out there but I am not going to find them through a third party search pattern. I prefer to take control of my own options.
...
I hesitate "jumping the gun" and losing potential contracts because of a bad approach - first impressions are never recaptured and difficult to change. Also this industry is very tight, word gets around quickly. I have to overcome the fact that I am a woman trying to make it in a man's industry without the added hinderance of a
bad first impression...
...
Is it better to approach "face-to-face" or "cold calls" ? Personally I prefer "face-to-face". Is e-mail preferred?
==> Read Story <==
10:31:05 AM Google It!
IM Me About This
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Oops! Simon Moved!
If you're not reading Simon's weblog and you do web development, you're missing out. Recommended:
http://simon.incutio.com/
Simon's also the author of the FontFixer bookmarklet (click on it and it makes any web page's text sizable; drag it to your links bar and you always have it) on the list at right and a just a real star in my opinion.
9:47:10 AM Google It!
IM Me About This
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Pants. How Very, Very Strange.
After a summer of working pretty much exclusively with a very casual non-profit group, I have a meeting with a new client* today and I actually am wearing pants. It's more than a little strange since I've probably worn pants maybe 5 times since may. Maybe. Ah well, such is life. And, I probably don't even need to wear them since it's about a web site for a yoga studio. I suspect that shorts could be ok but since you never know, pants it is.
*hence probably limited blogging today
Marketing 101 Note -- It's always interesting to me how companies just fall into niche markets without any effort on their parts. Since we built the website for another yoga studio, www.yogaforyou.net, the owner recommended us to a friend who runs a yoga studio in a different town.
Rule of thumb: If you make your customers happy, they'll help build your business for you.
8:16:01 AM Google It!
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Tuesday, September 17, 2002 |
Copying PHP is Fine -- If You Get It Right: Bad Macromedia! Bad!
While I'm definitely not a Flash fan, I do try to be objective. Still I see a comment like this:
From Mesh on Mx:
One thing to note, is that we have made the Flash Remoting Documentation available under our livedocs system, which is similar to the PHP documentation at php.net.
Um. Ah. Hmmm.... I use www.php.net daily for documentation. And the Macromedia stuff is nothing like it. All Macromedia's documentation seems to be is a static set of html pages (actually JSP) with next and previous buttons. What makes the PHP documentation awesome is that anyone can (and does) add a comments to clarify, expand or give an example. Sure some of it is wrong from time to time but it's much more frequently right. And very, very useful. Did I miss something? How is "livedocs" like php's documentation?
9:36:57 PM Google It!
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Daypop Seems to Be Gone
Sorry for the inconvenience. Daypop has been out of service for the past two weeks.
It turns out Daypop is out of disk space. Check back here for further updates.
How'd I miss that? So I surf over to MIT's BlogDex only to find out that they too are a FontBitches! (What? You thought I gave up on that tirade?. Nope.) I tell you there's nothing like 10 point white type on a dark blue background. Sigh.
MIT Media Lab: Not a font aware designer to be found I guess.
4:53:33 PM Google It!
IM Me About This
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What a Great Essay: Do Da Scoble!
Nice to see such refreshing honesty:
You heard it here first: Robert Scoble was wrong.
In 1995 I said Borland would die.
I was wrong.
I had just seen Phillipe Kahn introduce Delphi. He seemed drunk to me and obnoxious. A sore loser, after all, Microsoft had kicked his ass. And he attacked Visual Basic, which was the language that gave me 10 years of pay checks (I was an editor with Fawcette Technical Publications BasicPro Magazine which then became Visual Basic Programmer's Journal).
But, as someone who was a Borland developer for 9+ years, I'm not at all certain I'd go back. Don't get me wrong -- Delphi is awesome but Borland burned a lot of people. I'd say their key marketing challenge is restablishing trust. Before I buy a tool these days -- for anything -- I know that the cost of the tool is the smallest part of the equation. The real cost is in using the tool; learning it and then being orphaned by the vendor and having to move on. So as much as I agree with Scoble that Borland does a good job, choosing tools is something that we do more wisely now than in the old days. Thinking ahead to the future is much more common now than it once was. So before Borland could lure me back, they have to make me trust them and that's awfully hard.
Here's one thing that could do it: Delphi for OSX support. For professional development tools, it's always been "do something else" when it came to the Mac. Visual Basic? Nope. Visual C++? Not really. Turbo Pascal or Delphi? Not a chance. But if Borland brought out Delphi for OSX then it sends a very real, "we're serious" message. This would give one tool that could let you build GUI apps across three different platforms. Now that would be awesome.
4:31:35 PM Google It!
IM Me About This
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Charles Simonyi Leaves Microsoft
Interestingly Charles Simonyi has decided to leave Microsoft. He is, without question, a brilliant man in both good and bad ways. Not only did he give (or inflict) Microsoft Word on us but he also abused us with Hungarian notation; one of the more arcane ways to name variables ever invented. He's apparently going to be building new "intentional" development tools. Still I saw several issues with what's been reported (NY Times, Wall Street Journal and online sources) that makes me wonder if his leaving is being "spin doctored":
- I'm kinda disappointed to hear that he's pursuing visual development tools. This is one of those areas that's been around forever (I used Serius on the Mac in the late 80s). More on these tools. And, yes, I know that James Gosling of Java fame is doing this too so it's trendy (and like a Microsoftie to copy someone else's direction) but I'm still not convinced that this type of development is viable beyond the teeny tiny prototype.
- In the WSJ, they said that the market he was pursuing was too small for a company like Microsoft but still needed a company to do it. Huh? This is very strange since Microsoft will often release small scale tools. Look at some of the things like J++ which Microsoft built when Java was just getting started (admittedly, it had a lot of buzz) or the new .NET tools which is just a tiny market right now.
- Given that development tools require a huge framework of supporting technology like parsers, IDEs, compilers, etc, does it even make sense for him to have left? Couldn't he have done it as a small scale effort inside Microsoft? Or is he going to leverage Open Source tools for this?
- From the NY Times:
"Mr. Simonyi has left Microsoft with the right to use the intellectual property he developed and patented while working there."
Ah Hello ! Why? Ethics? Favoritism? This is a man with a personal net worth measured (last I looked) in the near billion $ range. If not over a billion. Why does a publicly traded company like Microsoft choose to give away intellectual property? This smells like the GE / Jack Welch thing. Will it be disclosed in Microsoft financial statements? Will he personally pay income tax on the value of them ?
Note: The comment about Hungarian notation is an opinion. Hungarian notation can be good or bad depending on how seriously you take it but I am not a fan.
1:04:20 PM Google It!
IM Me About This
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How You Know a Really, Really Good Product: Jira
I just got the nicest email from Matt Mower of LiveTopics fame (well future fame?). Anyway, we were talking about a software development project and, out of the blue, he recommended Jira by www.Atlassian.com. Jira is a very cool "issue tracking" software product that is created by Mike the "Rebelutionary". It really is a next generation tool for issue tracking with such features as CVS-To-Jira and Email-To-Commit. Anyway, I know that Matt has no relationship to Mike and Mike's actually on a whole different continent; Australia. Matt's just a smart guy who has looked at these type of products and recognized that Jira is top notch.
That's how you know a really, really good product -- when people make unsolicited recommendations that don't benefit them at all. Very cool. Thanks Matt! Thanks Mike!
11:40:28 AM Google It!
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Very Cool! Marc Canter Has a Blog
Marc Canter, one of the original founders of Macromedia, now has a blog at:
http://blogs.it/0100198/
Very, very cool. He's hosting this using Radio through Paolo's http://blogs.it/ domain which is a pretty nifty vanity domain. Marc is one of those utterly irrepressible fellows that if you ever have a chance to see him speak at a conference, run -- don't walk, and get a good seat. He was the keynote speaker at Web Builder 2002 and was just a gas. It was my first high tech keynote that included the keynoter bellowing out opera (Marc's also a trained Opera singer). Marc is also running BroadBand Mechanics, a new startup.
9:56:20 AM Google It!
IM Me About This
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A Moment of Epiphany -- When You Realize that Web Based Applications Rule -- Even at Home
I just had a moment of epiphany when I realized, once again, why web based applications rule -- even at home when Outlook is "available". For a lot of us, we use web based applications like Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Calendar, etc when we travel but revert to a full Outlook / Entourage / whatever in our office. Well here I was, at my office (also my living room but let's not go there, shall we?), and it was one of those situations we've all seen too often -- my computer stopped responding. Just one of those mysterious circumstances where nothing I do is doing anything. We've all seen it and short of a restart, there isn't really anything to do except wait. And I knew that waiting would clear it up -- there was just some kind of system level thingie gone wrong (ain't it fun to talk geeky?). So I was waiting. And waiting. And the phone rang! Cool! Distraction. Oops -- it was a new client wanting me to go to her office and discuss a project.
That's right! I needed my calendar. And I knew that my machine wasn't going to do it. So I turned to my Linux laptop and went to the url for my web based calendar. And scheduled the appointment. If I had been using Outlook then I would have either had to a) go by memory (bad) or b) admit that even my computer was dead (embarassing). Quite honestly neither of those approaches would have been acceptable. As much as I like the rich GUI of something like Outlook, these attributes matter more to me:
- Reliability
- Ubiquitous Accessibility to My Data
- Predictability
Unfortunately conventional or "fat client" based applications fail on all these attributes i.e.
- Reliability? Even running under something like OS X, applications still crash more than we like. And Windows 2000 / Fill In Windows Version Here is pretty much a joke for reliability.
- Predictability? Conventional applications just aren't predictable. Change to a friends computer and the software might be different. Or your computer will hang for a period of time -- you know it will come back but not when.
- Ubiquitous Accessibility to My Data? Sure -- if your machine is always reliable, always with you, always turned on, always networked, your data is accessible. Unfortunately that is all too often not the case. Machines aren't reliable; we don't want to carry even a laptop everywhere we go; and networking is hard.
The real problem here is that the expectations of the customer have outstripped the ability of conventional applications to deliver. Now that we are much more connected, we want computers and our data to be like a telephone -- always on and always working. Sure telephones don't have rich interfaces but they succeed on the criteria of Reliability and Predictability. Since phones don't store data, it's not fair to grade them on the third criteria. And conventional applications are just not there yet and they may never be -- they aren't designed for it. Web based applications, for all their myriad flaws, are designed for this always networked world and that's why they rule. We're only now starting to see rich DHTML based user interfaces that give us the power of fat clients. www.oddpost.com is one such user interface. But there will be more.
Note: I'm aware that not everyone is lucky enough to have a 2nd machine sitting around. But, if I was in a real office setting, I could have gone to the cube next to me and done the same thing with a web browser. The analogy still works. And web applications still rule.
9:35:40 AM Google It!
IM Me About This
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Inexpensive Email Marketing Tool
I just ran across Constant Contact from www.roving.com which purports to be an email marketing tool offered on an ASP basis starting at $10 per month. I'm not normally big on very low prices (you get what you pay for) but someone I respect a lot uses it regularly.
Note: It's very, very unclear to me that email marketing works all that well anymore -- we're all so innundated that we just blip by email newsletters and the like. And, I tend not to trust metrics on high page views of email newsletters and the like since the preview pane in mail clients causes the tracking gifs to be activated. The only trustworthy metric is click throughs based on a call to action like "View our white paper". If people click through on that link then you know your email marketing campaign works.
9:09:38 AM Google It!
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Compensating Bloggers Worldwide
We've talked about wishlists.
And then there's the Amazon tip jar.
And, now, from the Brunching Shuttlecocks, there is: Go.
8:38:30 AM Google It!
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Monday, September 16, 2002 |
The Best Metaphor for KM Yet. Outstanding!
What a brilliant way to describe why you need KM technology:
I had just brought up the old adage that only 20% of the knowledge in a company is usually stored in knowledge-bases whilst the other 80% walks home every night and how, whilst this might be true, it doesn't seem to be effective in convincing people to invest in knowledge management.
"Imagine you are running a factory and every night 80% of the machinery walked home and maybe wouldn't come back the next morning. How quickly do you think you would invest in ways of keeping it?"
http://radio.weblogs.com/0107808/2002/09/12.html#a383
Way to go Matt!
7:56:19 PM Google It!
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Excellent MySQL Performance Real World Piece
Another outstanding piece of content from Jeremy:
MySQL, Linux and Thread Caching
In case you're curious as to why this is tagged as being about PHP it's only because I know that the rest of this application is built with PHP.
6:05:46 PM Google It!
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Good Guide to LCD Monitors
Given that I'm a resolution freak (1600x1200x32 bit; usually like 20-30 windows open), I keep finding that the LCD monitor I want is always a year or two away. I do really, really want one though and ran across this outstanding guide to LCD displays.
Tom's Hardware
What was surprising to me was a) Prices are much lower than I thought and b) That the no-name brands ranked as highly as they did.
4:57:55 PM
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Sweet: Essential Blogging Is Now On Amazon!
I'm sure many of the people reading know that I'm one of the authors of Essential Blogging. I just got the thrill of seeing that it's finally on Amazon -- with the cover even:
Amazon Link to Essential Blogging
If anyone out there actually read it and wants to post and Amazon review (nudge, nudge, nudge), that would be greatly appreciated.
4:46:23 PM Google It!
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Why Won't the Government Pressure Microsoft on Security?
Well it's not just me who thinks that Microsoft needs to clean up their act. Now www.news.com is publicly asking "Why Won't Uncle Sam Pressure Microsoft on Security?". Excellent article:
http://news.com.com/2010-1074-957970.html
And, yes, I do have a bias towards Microsoft when it comes to security -- they simply do a poor job in this area and have for years and years.
4:29:37 PM Google It!
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Interesting Web Based RSS / RDF News Aggregator
I only gave it a very cursory look over but a) it seems to work b) absolutely simple, brain dead sign up service c) has got lots of feeds already d) lets you create your own custom tabs to organize news which is very, very nice
http://www.fyuze.com/
1:07:34 PM Google It!
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Marketing 101: Humor in Marketing - Perl Programmers Anonymous
Although I don't do much in perl these days I am still on the Perl Jobs mailing list where a variety of perl programming jobs are featured along with Perl freelancers. I'm a huge fan of humor in marketing and, while you don't often see it applied to "marketing yourself", it certainly can be done. Here's a great example that I just found in my inbox from 8/27 (I know I'm way, way, way, way behind on email):
[Setting: Perl Programmers Anonymous meeting]
Hi,
I'm Mike, and I'm a Perl programmer.
[response from audience: "Hi, Mike"]
I have tried to like C. I even worked in Java for a while. No matter what I tried, I couldn't help it. It was like all I could think about was getting a job where all I did was Perl.
[sympathetic nods]
I was employed as an SAP consultant, doing 4GL work for companies like DuPont and Owens-Corning. At first it was interesting enough, but pretty soon I knew that I just coulnd't keep living the lie. I was a Perl programmer, I knew it, and it was just impossible to hide.
I introduced Perl and MySQL to the company and built an internal tool to track their consultants, saving them a hundred thousand dollars on some system that they were considering purchasing. Even when the job wasn't supposed to be a Perl job, it became one when I got there.
[knowing looks and sighs]
Then came OO Perl. First it was just a little here and there, extending a module or two with a couple of extra methods. Then before I knew it I was doing everything with h2xs, making my stuff installable with "perl Makefile.PL && make && make install", using autoload rampantly and getting really rabid about ensuring inheritability. I couldn't stop myself! All I wanted to do was push it to the next level.
[mutters of "boy, have I been there!"]
Please help me feed my addiction!
[wild applause]
mike south
PS Perl programmer, Adept level, available immediately. I live in the Raleigh NC area, love telecommuting, but would be open to the possbility of relocating. Experienced with Linux, DBI, Apache, GD, etd.
http://fulcrum.org/msouth/resume.txt
http://fulcrum.org/msouth/perl_summary.txt
http://fulcrum.org/msouth/perl_details.txt
I'd hire him if I needed a perl dude! Absolutely hilarious (albeit definitely a lot of in jokes here).
12:13:00 PM Google It!
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If I Was Steve Jobs .... or Mira Rethought
I've blogged a few times about how I think that Mira, Microsoft upcoming new Wireless tablet, is a loser. There's no question that it was born during the dot com heyday and not rethought since. It will fail and Microsoft will (once again) take three tries to get it right. Since Mira lacks a local keyboard or the ability to be used concurrently by different users, it's more of a "browse the web from the couch thing" than something useful. Still there is something interesting here: Let's Bring Back Terminals (but make them wireless). That's right terminals. Machines without local discs and I think that Apple should be the one to do it. Let me explain.
I recently did a very interesting experiment, I took an old, pretty much dead laptop (400 mhz celeron, 192 megs RAM) and installed Windows XP and a WiFi card on it. This is a machine that's been in my junk pile for a year or so now and isn't usable by normal standards. Still it can run a web browser and an IM client albeit slowly. Then I moved it upstairs to my night table, right next to my bed (no snide comments please). And, guess what, those early morning insomniac email checks? No longer have to go downstairs. Instant messages? Piece of cake. Best of all? My MP3 collection !!! The way I look at it is that between email and IM, having a terminal right next to your bed is just like having a phone next to your bed. It just plain makes sense.
So here's the product I'd like to see:
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Wireless Monitor -- Doesn't even have to be big; a 13" LCD could be fine
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Wireless Keyboard with built in mouse pad or trackpoint (preferred) Since you often use this sitting up, not in a desk chair, the keyboard needs to have the pointing device integrated.
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Ability to access web or non-web applications
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1 power cord w/ relatively small power brick
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Substantial, weighty base (perhaps empty that you fill with sand to save shipping weight) -- it doesn't matter when you knock your clock radio over. It does matter when you knock over your terminal
Depending on price, I can easily see a family buying 2 or three of these such as one for little Billy's room another for his sister and so on. The more I use PCs, the more I realize what a tower of babel we've created. PCs are just plain hard to maintain and storage is just a bloody nightmare. Having one main machine for the "house" and then terminals off it makes a lot more sense from a maintenance perspective than a machine for each family member, each of which has to get updated, configured, virus proofed, backed up, etc.
Here's another reason why you might want this for little Billy or his sister: Child Safety. As much as I am a civil liberties freak and very, very, very open minded, even I will admit that there is a lot of stuff out on the Internet that perhaps children shouldn't be seeing. When someone has their own machine with their own disc storage, it's a lot harder for Mom and Dad to know what's going on. You should also bear in mind that since parents these days are often being held legally responsible for their children's actions, this actually makes some real sense.
Note: I'm not disregarding the fact that little Billy may often know more about his computer than Mom or Dad. Still, while we'd all like to think that kids always know more about computers than their parents, it's not always the case. Not every kid is a hacker who can bust through security restrictions.
That's it. Terminals. Make sense to anyone besides me?
11:13:35 AM Google It!
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Yike and Double Yike: Outlook Express Security Hole
This is a tough one to beat. And, what's worse, is that I couldn't even find a way to turn off this message re-assembly "feature". Anyone know how? What's also bad is that Outlook Express is normally more secure than Outlook itself. Sigh.
The Beyond Security team reports that a largely unused feature in the Outlook Express mail client has, literally, opened up a new way for virus writers to bypass standard anti-virus software packages.
The feature, known as "message fragmentation and re-assembly", is meant to allow users who want to send large e-mails to split the mail into smaller chunks. When they send the mail, the receiving client re-assembles the mail to make up the whole.
Beyond Security notes that by splitting up virus messages, writers may well be able to bypass the normal checking routines because the virus signature will be split into multiple parts, making it difficult to recognise.
More
Note -- this basically doesn't affect people that use Outlook 2000 or Outlook XP since this feature is off by default.
9:04:31 AM Google It!
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Very Cool Networking Stuff (If You Are, Well, Geeky That Is)
Here are a couple of cool networking things. Did you know that there are several, seemingly undocumented, private IP subnetwork ranges beyond 10. and 192.. My buddy www.apokalyptik.com found these over the weekend, did the research to confirm them, and they seem real. Still he's NEVER seen these documented and neither have I. Very bizarre. (The new ones are in bold).
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192.168.X.Y
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10.X.Y.Z
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82.X.Y.Z
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92.X.Y.Z
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Note -- in case the above description of these doesn't make much sense here's the quick, albeit not perfect description. Every machine on the Internet has an IP address such as 64.14.1.94; the address of the server where this blog is located. When you have a computer on an internal local area network, you don't want to use an IP address of a machine located on the Internet since it could cause problems, particularly when you need to access that machine by IP address. The addresses above are NOT routable and NOT used on the public internet meaning they are very, very safe for use on internal networks.
Also, I printed this a while ago but it's still cool: The domain name http://www.example.com/ (i.e. example.com) is NEVER in use and solely for use in technical documentation so you can write in a manual bob@example.com and know that poor Bob won't get yet another spam. Thanks to my friend Guy Haas for this one.
8:50:43 AM Google It!
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A New Game: Google Pursuit
In honor of everyone's current fascination with Google i.e. Google Cooking, Google Whacking, I give you the new game: Google Trivia! Here's how it works:
- Come up with a triva question such as "Who was the third astronaut in the Apollo 11 mission? You know -- the one who stayed on the ship and didn't walk on the moon?"
- The goal is to come up with a Google query that answers the question. Here's the scoring:
- Shortest query wins top price: 5 points per question.
- Add 1 point if the answer can be found right from the Google result list
- Add 1 point if the answer can be found in the 1st page of results
- Subtract 1 point for each web page you open from the results list that DOESN'T have the answer
- Add 1 point if it is in the 1st 3 listings on the results list
- Here's the query I came up with for the question in #1:
Comments? Or did the allergies I suffer from this weekend permanently warp my brain ? (I couldn't code or write very much but I still could google!)
8:22:50 AM Google It!
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Build Your Own Mac
That's right -- build your own Mac! I know that PC folks do this all the time but I've never heard of Mac folks doing it. Courtesy of www.slashdot.com:
http://www.macopz.com/buildamac/
In case you are wondering "Why the *)(#$*)(#$ would I want to build my own mac?" Here's the answer: Case Size. It's not uncommon to have 4 or more full size drives in a PC case whereas most Mac cases only hold 1 or 2. Internal drives are cheaper than external drives and less cumbersome / fewer cables.
8:12:13 AM Google It!
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Sunday, September 15, 2002 |
Securing Your WiFi Network
There's little doubt that WiFi networks are _the_ coming thing. They're fast, they're easy, they're cool. Still, by default, all traffic is unencrypted and that's obviously Bad (capital B intentional). Here's a quote: "A seven-month investigation conducted in London found that 94% of all wireless LANS in use were inadequately protected from attacks. " (first link just below) Here are two good articles on securing your WiFi network:
Also, interesting perspective on the confusing 802.11a (WiFi is 802.11b):
Digitimes
Finally, here is a good article on building home networks. As I've mentioned previously, I strongly recommend Linksys networking hardware since it's about as close to easy and good as I've ever found.
Home Network Technologies and Strategies
7:05:04 PM Google It!
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Picture of the Day
With Boston having gotten warm / muggy again, I thought that this was the perfect picture for today:
Harrison, NY, West Street, John Brewer Home
10:48:25 AM Google It!
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Nurses alienated by job stresses, lures from related fields
Really good article on making the career switch to nursing and what you might encounter. Given the number of people out of work, interesting.
By Diane E. Lewis, Globe Staff, 9/15/02
For as long as she could remember, LaTanya Robinson, 23, of Dorchester, wanted to be a nurse. ''There is something about taking care of people when they are sick that has always interested me,'' said Robinson. ''It makes me feel as if I am helping or doing something good.''
http://bostonworks.boston.com/globe/articles/091502_nurses.html
10:46:39 AM Google It!
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