Well, days after completing a big work project, I’m still playing catchup on reading. Fortunately, my RSS reader caught and retained lots of good stuff—like this: A Thursday Wired story about a Russian spammer beating […]
Category: Tech
Keep the Net Open
With each passing day, I find myself at odds with Washington policy. As if immigration wasn’t bad enough, now it’s Net neutrality.
Today, largely splitting along party lines, the House Commerce Committee whacked an amendment that would have guaranteed Net neutrality. I’ve long opposed overregulation, but there are times when government oversight is appropriate. Given ongoing FCC deregulation, which would no longer require large telecos delivering DSL to let competitors use their lines, and ongoing efforts to prioritize access, the government should take action to guarantee neutrality of the Net.
No Finder Keeper
My daughter and I fled the house today, down the road to the 7-Eleven. My wife had gone out for the afternoon—and left to fend for our own lunch, we opted for convenience. My daughter got a turkey and cheese sub, while I went for a burrito. But on the way to the convenience store, there was adventure: A lost cell phone.
As we cut across a parking lot towards the 7-Eleven, I spotted a clamshell on the pavement. Well, well, finder’s keepers? Not in my family. Lost is returned. We hoofed over to the building adjacent to the parking lot, asking if someone had lost a cell phone. The folks inside weren’t exactly helpful. I called myself using the lost phone, hoping to get some caller ID. None, except a number with 206 area code, which I recognized as Washington State.
Spammers Targeting Kids
Yesterday, something unusual started to occur. Occasional comment spam would hit my recently relocated blogsite. Interestingly, the spam comments are targeted at the two December posts about protecting kids online. WordPress has built-in moderation, so […]
MySpace is OK
CNN has a story claiming MySpace helped foil a school shooting. Last week I said that MySpace isn’t the problem the news media has made it out to be. Heck, any place high schoolers can […]
Where Old News is the Only News
On Friday, a good friend asked me to look at a news story about Apple legal sending an unwelcome letter to an eight year-old girl. The letter basically told her to get lost. Apparently, the third grader had sent a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs suggesting a new feature for iPods: Lyrics viewing. She got her response, not from Steve but an Apple lawyer, about three months later. Turns out that Apple has a policy against taking unsolicited ideas, which the letter clearly stated.
The news story focused on the little girl’s hurt feelings and Apple’s slap-in-the-face response. Earth to Apple: Lawyers=bad PR. Always. But the response was lame for another reason: The feature already is available on iPods. It’s just not well publicized.
Apple Answers ‘What If’
Nearly two weeks has passed since Apple released Boot Camp, and I’ve said absolutely nothing on my personal blog about the software. The reason: I would never run Windows on a Mac that I own.
Boot Camp makes sense for people who think they might need Windows or have actual, occasional need. The software answers the question, “What if I need Windows?” But that’s a psychological more than real concern for most, potential Mac switchers. I’m convinced that most people thinking they might need Windows won’t. I know people who can’t throw away stuff, even if they haven’t used it for years, because of the “What if I need it” question. The barrier, while psychological, is real.
The End Begins
Last night, I moved my domain to a new host and started setting up a new Weblog using WordPress. Please note the new URL and new Webfeed. If you subscribe to my TypePad feed, please, […]
Hacker Commandos
Looks like Orthodox Jewish hackers are replacing porn with pictures of Rabbi Menahem Mendel Schneerson. Dubbed “sex commandos”, they place text, “we, the Da-Net group, have hacked into this site and erased all its abomination”, […]
MySpace Isn’t the Problem
Shoot, will people lay off poor MySpace. Today the company hired a new Chief Security Officer, in response to a bunch of news stories about kids online safety. Yesterday, my mom called to make sure that I didn’t miss a Dateline story about the dangers of MySpace. Sorry, Ma. I spent time with my daughter rather than watch about parents that weren’t looking after their kids.
The problem isn’t social networking sites, but unmonitored kids and their uninvolved parents. In December I warned of kids risky, online behavior. But the greater risk is from the parents. C’mon, if kids are posting on public blogs, why should predators be reading them and not the parents?
When Magazines Mattered
To promote the Macintosh 22 years ago, Apple purchased all—as in every—ad space in the Newsweek 1984 election issue. That was 39 pages.
The folks over at Graphical User Interface Gallery (aka Guidebook) have preserved every page from that Newsweek issue. It was a time when magazine advertising really mattered, unlike today when the Internet undermines magazine circulation.
The D200, After All
Okay, so call me bogus. Back in February, I made clear that there would be no camera switch, as I previously contemplated—from the Canon EOS 20D to the Nikon D200. I’ve been unhappy with my EOS 20D for sometime, even as I acquired several nice Canon lenses. The Canon camera’s ergonomics doesn’t suit me, nor have I been satisfied with the photos compared to the Nikon D70. The Nikon D70 felt more like an extension of my eye, capturing images just as I saw them.
But low-light photography is important to me, and that’s one area where the EOS 20D excels over the Nikon D200, based on tests like PBase forum member Norm’s 20D-D200 photo comparison. I resigned to sticking with the EOS 20D—after all, I had some nice lenses.