Tech Talk
If you’re going to do it, do it right…
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010Dear spammer,
If you’re going to send me fake e-mail claiming to be from Citibank’s customer service department, you may want to note that Citibank doesn’t capitalize the “b” in their name. Also, you may want to spell words like “security” and “upon” correctly.
Sincerely,
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spam Recipient
It’s hard to imagine that people open these files at all (even though I know they do), but if you think your bank misspelled its own name and the word “security” in their security e-mail and you still open the file? Well, then, enjoy your virus. You are beyond help…
Categories: Tech Talk | 1 Comment »
Allright already, here’s my iPad post
Saturday, January 30th, 2010
I have been notified by the blogging authorities that I am in violation of Blog Law #865309, subsection 2, paragraph iii, which clearly states that anyone running an active blog on or about January 27, 2010 must post their thoughts on Apple’s new iPad product within 48 hours of Steve Jobs’ announcement or face severe ridicule in the tech-geek community. Because of my failure to do so, I have hereby been sentenced to provide tech support to my entire extended family at all hours of the day and night for the foreseeable future.
In posting this now, I am throwing myself on the mercy of the courts, in hopes of earning myself some time off for good behavior.
Now, where were we? Ah yes, the iPad. First of all: Wow. Wicked cool. Seriously. I mean, DAMN! You don’t get more Star Trek than that. Come on! Check out the picture to the right – those Personal Access Display Devices (or P.A.D.D.’s) they used on the show might as well have been iPads, and that was back in the early 90’s. As always, Apple gets props for turning science fiction into retail electronics. If the Blackberry was the Tricorder, than this thing is the P.A.D.D..
I suspect a lot of people will spend a lot of time (and a considerable amount of money) gawking at how cool it looks. But eventually, you need to turn it on and actually, you know, use it for something. On that score, at least for now, I’m still impressed. After all, who are we kidding? It’s a 10-inch iPhone/iPod Touch. All those people who insisted they were comfortable watching a full-length feature film on a 4.5″ x 2.5″ screen can finally admit that yes, a 9.6″ x 7.8″ is much, much nicer, thank you very much. Same goes for viewing pictures, playing video games and browsing the web. After all, that “pinch and spread” technology is very cool and all, but reading a content-rich web page would be much nicer if we didn’t have to do quite so much pinching.
There is a new wrinkle here in iBooks, and while the interface is Apple-style cool, there’s the little sticking point of eInk vs. LCD screen. As pretty as the iPad’s screen is, it can’t be as easy on the eyes as eInk, putting iPad at a disadvantage in the eReader category. I don’t think this is insurmountable, though. If people like what the iPad can do, they might accept a slightly inferior eBook reader to avoid buying (and carrying around) two devices. And, as I said in my review of the Amazon Kindle, the other eBook readers don’t even attempt to do what the iPad can do.
That said, if iBooks is the new wrinkle, then the new crease is the presence of content-entry apps, specifically the iWork suite and Mail. That keyboard that would pop up for texting/e-mailing on your iPhone is almost full-size now, and so Apple is placing a (small) bet that people will use the iPad to create content, not just to consume it. Here, I think they wade into dangerous territory. The “wow” factor will fade quickly when you have to get your presentation done, and if Keynote is much easier to use on the MacBook than it is on the iPad, people will revert back awfully quickly. Also, and I know I speak blasphemy here, there’s still the small problem of Microsoft Office’s 80% market share in this space. Those of us who haven’t entered Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field can still plug our iPods, iPod Touches, and iPhones into our Windows PC’s, but there’s no way we’re doing the budget spreadsheet in Numbers, and then sending it to our boss who expects Excel. If they want the iPad to truly replace the laptop, they’re going to need to reach out with the olive branch and get Microsoft to write iPad specific versions of those programs. (No, I’m not holding my breath).
Then there is the matter of what isn’t there. I’m surprised, for instance, that the iPad cannot function as a phone. If you’ve got 3G capability (optional), the iPhone OS, a microphone and speakers/a headphone jack, isn’t phone functionality just another app? Or is Apple suggesting that we buy (and carry around) an iPad and an iPhone? Dubious. Also, I’m reading where Safari for iPad doesn’t support Adobe Flash? Didn’t Steve Jobs tell us we’d have the “whole web in the palm of our hands?” This is kind of like the semi-secret “no, it doesn’t do cut & paste yet” thing with the original iPhones. I’m looking for a flash-enabled browser in the very near future. I’m sure other gotcha’s like this will dribble out once the iPad actually gets in the hands of users, but for now, those are the two that surprised me the most.
Conclusions?
As things stand today, if someone were to buy me one as a gift, I’d gladly give it a permanent home in my laptop bag, where it would replace my (old and aging) iPod and probably also my Kindle. It would provide me with a good portable photo frame, video player and web browser, none of which I have today. I don’t think I’d use it for e-mail (except maybe an occasional one-off, blackberry style) and I’m pretty sure I’d never use the iWork apps. For those reasons, if I’m spending my own money, I’d probably save the $300 and buy an iPod Touch, which does OK as a photo frame, video player and web browser, and doesn’t make me pay for all that extra stuff I’d never use.
But that’s today. In the near future, I fully expect someone (be it Apple or a competitor) to take the ball from here and run with it. And if a similar device were to become available for less money, running the apps I’m used to using, and making it just as easy to create on a tablet as it is on a laptop, then I am so there.
One last thing: the name. There are two problems with it. The first is somewhat localized in the American northeast (specifically, Boston) where the word “iPad” and the word “iPod” sound way too similar for everyone’s liking. More globally, though, I join pretty much everyone in the world in wondering if there are any women who work in Apple’s marketing department. Or at least any men who might have remembered this from back in 2006:
Categories: ISBS Reviews, Tech Talk | 9 Comments »
ISBS Review: The Amazon Kindle
Sunday, December 27th, 2009I realize that this probably would have been more useful before Christmas, but I’ve been using the Amazon Kindle for about a month now, and I’ve finally found the time to write up a review. So, if you didn’t get one for Christmas and you’ve got stuff to return at Amazon, maybe this will help you out.
One sentence: The Amazon Kindle is surprisingly good at what it does, but surprisingly stubborn in its desire to only do that one thing.
More than one sentence: When I read a book on the Amazon Kindle, I quite often forget that I’m not reading a real book, sometimes to the point where I reach for the upper-right corner of the page to turn it, rather than pushing the “Next Page” button. Reasons for this include screen resolution, form factor and simple design.
Categories: ISBS Reviews, Tech Talk | 2 Comments »
How People Found Me – 2009 Edition
Thursday, December 24th, 2009Back by popular demand (well, OK, back by Ilya’s demand, but heck – I’m easy…), it’s a roundup of the most interesting and/or disturbing Google searches that led people to I Should Be Sleeping.
I used to do this monthly, but eventually slacked off. So, to make up for it, I’ve culled through the 5,930 different queries that brought people here this year, and pulled out my favorite 50. I even divided them into categories for your reading pleasure…
1) The Financial Funnies
Since this year was all about the collapsing financial markets, I thought I’d start with some “money funnies…” (sorry, but you might as well be warned, it’s going to be that kind of blog post…):
| Query | Comments |
| dick fuld astrological birth chart | This guy has a different theory on why Lehman Brothers went out of business… |
| harvard man washes urinals | And you thought the recession was over… |
| how do i hack into the swift network | Well, you start by being a little more subtle than Googling around for directions… |
| time magizine people who caused banking | I think I’ve narrowed it down to two possibilities: bankers and customers. |
2) Hi-Tech Hijinks
When you write about technology once in a while, you’re bound to get a few Google glitches:
| Query | Comments |
| capslock-sleeping | i’d use proper capitalization, but my caps-lock key is taking a nap right now… |
| cool things to do with camera | OK – other than, you know, taking pictures – I’m struggling to think of a second thing you can do with a camera… |
| digital camera for idiots | Perhaps we just shouldn’t let them take pictures. Then there’d be no need for this product… |
| excel macro to create family tree | Click here for more cousins… |
| how do i hook up an ethernet cable to the phone line | Those are both wires. I think, perhaps, you should go ask your teenage kids for help. |
| i phone bursting into flames | You do? I hope you’re calling 9-1-1… |
| iphone nose | Want to stop and smell the roses? There’s an app for that! |
| why won’t it let me on webkinz? it says my password is wrong | I think perhaps this guy has already found the answer to his question… |
3) Hollywood Hilarity
The world of entertainment is never a bad source for, well, entertaining queries:
| Query | Comments |
| disney koolaid | You know, it’s one thing to drink the Disney Kool-Aid. It’s quite another to Google around looking for it… |
| disney wonder bathroom fragrance | For people who want their bathrooms to smell like a Disney cruise ship (see Kool-Aid, Disney above). |
| simon cowell and mel gibson look alike | Top result of this search: No. No, they don’t. (Editor’s Note: Sadly, not true) |
| tiger woods facial recognition | Heh…this query probably meant something totally different earlier in the year than it means today. |
| upgrade r2-d2 to bluray | “You must see this droid safely delivered to him on Alderaan. This is our most desperate hour. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; you’re my only hope. Also, if you could upgrade him to blu-ray, that’d be great. Thanks!” |
| what space shuttle was honored by its use of its name in a star trek movie | OK, if you’re thinking “Enterprise,” then I’m sorry to inform you that the shuttle was named for the Star Trek ship, not the other way around… |
4) Musical Mirth
This year, several of the more musical queries managed to hit a wrong note or two:
| Query | Comments |
| a song about graphs | “Because you’re mine. . . . I draw a line.” Or perhaps: “You’re just too good to be true; can’t take my pies off of you.” |
| billy joel just the way you are analyzed | It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday, the patient lies down on the couch…. |
| does billy joel’s piano have a teleprompter | Yes, yes it does. Billy Joel’s piano almost never speaks without a script. |
| good night my angle bill joel | “Goodnight my angle?” Would this be “acute” lyric? Or am I being obtuse? |
| sleeping rapping | Another truly disturbing sleep disorder. I mean, if having two turntables in the bed isn’t disturbing enough, there’s all that noise… |
| whats the name of the song that goes la de da de dum on verizon phone | Jeez, I hope they spelled those lyrics correctly. Typos can really negatively affect search results… |
5) Isn’t That Ironic?
These were the best of the worst (or something like that):
| Query | Comments |
| best bad food | But if it’s bad food, then how can it be – oh, nevermind… |
| best error message ever | “Your formula contains an error.” Oh, man – that’s a classic. Sometimes I type in wrong formulas on purpose, just to see it… |
| narcissistic blogs | On the one hand, it’s a bit of an insult that this query led to my blog. On the other hand, the person was looking for it… |
| new york rangers stadium phone number | You might want to try Googling Madison Square Garden. Also known as the “World’s Most Famous Arena.” Perhaps they should get a different nickname? |
6) Sleeping Around
With a name like I Should Be Sleeping, people are going to ask questions:
| Query | Comments |
| i am sleeping all my life | Sleep Googling – a dangerous affliction… |
| pitchers of people sleeping | Because once you’re ordering four or five sleeping people, it’s just easier to get a pitcher… |
| violation of sleeping rights | “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of a really good nap.” |
7) Stupid Criminals
A couple of people broke the laws of common-sense Googling this year:
| Query | Comments |
| a picture you killed abraham lincoln | This person apparently believes someone is going to confess to the crime… |
| does light dissuade criminals | Local police chief does internet research on his latest crime prevention program: daylight. |
8) Funny . . . or maybe a little scary?
These queries were more disturbing than anything else:
| Query | Comments |
| air force bloopers | “Hey – remember that time when Johnson flew all the way across the Atlantic with his blinker on? That was heee-larious!” |
| birthday tricks on people like flamingos in the yard | This guy sounds like quite the prankster… |
| boys hugging house | I know Dorothy said “There’s no place like home,” but this is a bit much, don’t you think? |
| can i get sick from touching a geico | Well, if you could, I’m guessing they’d offer health insurance too. Perhaps you meant “gecko?” |
| highway blogging | The precursor to texting while driving… |
| what’s wrong with anti semitism? | Oh, lord – please let there be more results for this than the one about the bear doing the moon walk (Editor’s Note: 531,000 – proof that some sanity still exists in the world). |
| zombies funny | Oh, yeah – zombies are hilarious. They really kill at the local comedy clubs. (Editor’s Note: sorry…) |
9) Generic Google Guffaws
These were so weird, I couldn’t even categorize them:
| Query | Comments |
| how many f’s are in this sentence | Now we’re asking Google brain teasers? Did he actually expect an answer? |
| man in bear suit doing moon walk | Oh, lord – please let there be, at most, one result for this search. (Editor’s Note: 47,200…) |
| roughly 25% of us use two of these a day what are they? | Again with the trivia? New from Google Labs in 2010: Google Guesses. Give it a riddle, and it tires to guess the answer. Most common result: “Who’s There?” |
| art turkeys | Most popular search result: Vincent Van Gobble… |
| president electoral vote of 1014-62 | Well, given that there’s only 538 of them, one can only hope this search produces zero results. (Editor’s Note: 9) |
10) A Dirty Mind
And then there’s the porn. Well, not exactly porn, but people who go looking for, shall we say, adult entertainment online, and wind up at my site somehow. Each time I do this, I take solace in the fact that when they got here, I can be pretty sure they were disappointed:
| Query | Comments |
| and he’s talking to davy who’s still in the navy +homo | Oh, come on – it says right there they were just talking… |
| bathing no close | Also known as “bathing far away?” I don’t think this person Googled what he he Googled… |
| excel macro suggestive | Porn industry continues to innovate. New this year: suggestive macros. “Hey, big boy, click on this button and I’ll fill your column with numbers, if you know what I mean…” |
| why are there two people making out on my bed when i should be sleeping | I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe it’s not your bed… |
| how to photograph your naked wife | Tip #1: get off of Google and talk to her about it… |
Well, there it is: my top 50 queries of 2009. Quite a year, huh?
Categories: Tech Talk | 4 Comments »
Wall Street Journal – Charging for Free Content?
Monday, October 19th, 2009Remember when the Wall Street Journal’s online content was free? And then they decided to start charging for it? And then it was free again? But sometimes it’s not?
As it turns out, the Wall Street Journal has implemented a rather unique, some may even say bizarre, online access policy. If you go to their website and click on an article, you have to login with a paid subscription. But if you Google a particular topic and the same article comes back as a search result, you can click through and read the entire article for free. So, in other words, you can’t read the entire Wall Street Journal on their website without paying for it, but if you were curious enough to enquire about everything in it, they will gladly share their content with you for free.
Perhaps an example would be useful. Follow along in a separate browser instance if you like:
Read the rest of this entry »
Categories: Money Talk, Political Rantings, Tech Talk | No Comments »
On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re a Dog . . . but it helps if they do!
Monday, October 19th, 2009
A colleague of mine just informed me that he joined Twitter. After weeding out the obvious spammers who would follow him if he would just please click this one link, he seems to have settled in at around ten followers.
On a lark, he also created a Twitter account for his daschund, Logan. Again, after weeding out the obvious spammers, Logan seems to have settled in at approximately seventy followers. Mostly women, he says, as well as a random assortment of dog lovers, kennels, and other seemingly legitimate dog-related vendors.
So, it would appear, that in the sixteen years since Peter Steiner first pointed out in The New Yorker magazine the anonymity that the Internet can provide, this very anonymity has turned out to reduce your audience size by a factor of roughly seven-to-one. Not only that, but it’s a pretty good bet that sometime in the next sixteen years, sociologists and linguists will come together to discover that the previous sentence actually does makes sense…
Categories: Tech Talk | No Comments »
Why Are We Still Arguing About Keyboards?
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
Speculist has an item up that once again bemoans the inferior QWERTY keyboard that persists over the superior Dvorak keyboard, despite its roots as a mechanical speed bump to prevent fast typists from jamming early typewriters. Speculist examines this age-old issue, as you might imagine, from a new perspective – that of the sticking power of well-established standards in the face of newer, better alternatives. They provide examples of other “QWERTYies” in our world – the English measuring system, the “office at work” in a work-at-home world, and others. Pretty interesting stuff…
A commenter took it one step further: a lot of our newer keyboards are not physical devices, but virtual keyboards appearing on a touch screen device (iPhone, Palm Pre, etc.). Surely, it would be easier to swap between QWERTY and Dvorak on those devices, right? All of the problems surrounding the conversion of physical keyboards melt away – you don’t need multiple keyboard drivers, you don’t have to worry about relabeling (or dual-labeling) the physical keys, multiple users of the device can change the setting back without having to know what it’s currently set to, and so on.
But then I got to thinking: touch-screen, “virtual” keyboards can do even better. They can let the users customize their own keyboard layouts. Perhaps you learned to type on a QWERTY keyboard, but your last name contains a “Z,” and it’s always bugged you that this frequently typed key was stuck on the weak, pinkie finger of your left hand. What’s to prevent you from starting with a QWERTY layout, and then swapping the “Z” key with, let’s say, the “J” or the “M” key? Or maybe you’re a writer/blogger/twitterer who writes a lot about UNIX. You could swap the home-row keys on your dominant hand from “JKL;” to “UNIX” (finding new homes for the the J, K, L, and semi-colon keys, of course). Any combination should be equally easy for the device – after all, they must have a graphics map built somewhere already that tells them what spot(s) on the touchscreen correspond to each letter. So all they’d have to do is update that map!
The downside, of course, would be that your customized keyboard wouldn’t be (automatically) available on other devices. For something as ubiquitous as an iPhone, that could be solved by allowing users to e-mail their keyboard layouts to each other, or post them on websites for easy download/installation, reverting back to the original when the guest is done typing. More ad-hoc devices (like public kiosks, for instance) might have to stick with a common few – also selectable by the user at start-up.
Suddenly, it occurs to me that there’s another definition of QWERTYies. They’re not just standards that stick because we’ve all become accustomed to them. In some cases, they’re standards that exist because we used to need standards in places where we don’t anymore. Telephone rings come to mind – it used to be that every telephone had the same RRRRRRING!!!!! Today, we have the ring-tone. TV Remote Controls used to have standard layouts, depending on the model of your TV. Today, universal remotes can be programmed with any layout and/or new key combinations.
I’m sure there are more, and I’m equally sure that as time goes on, the list will only get longer. In the meantime, though, I’m going to start designing my ideal, personalized keyboard…
Categories: Tech Talk | 3 Comments »
Microsoft Tablet Looks Awesome…
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
There’s a very cool video on the gizmodo site, but it doesn’t have an embedding option. Go check it out – trust me…
(Hat tip: Jeff Porten)
Categories: Tech Talk | No Comments »
Cold-War Era Search Service?
Monday, September 14th, 2009There’s been a lot of political talk on my blog of late, and there’s sure to be more, so I thought I’d take a quick break and discuss something a little more frivolous – like Soviet intelligence agencies.
Seriously, who in their right minds decided to name a search service KGB? Were they assuming that they’d have absolutely zero customers over the age of 30? Makes me think the service is going to text me answers to questions before I even ask them…
And not only that, it’s entirely phone-based. I can’t even type a question into their website and get an answer on screen. I need to type in my 10-digit mobile telephone number and receive the answer on my phone. Even though they know I’m currently using a web browser. Really, folks? In an era where almost every phone can access Google almost as easily as a text message, and Google (especially with its excellent mobile version) can provide multiple responses (from multiple sources) to the same question at once? Why, this technology seems like something that was built when, well…when the original KGB was still around.
Congratulations, KGB! You’ve created an inferior product that inherently limits my interaction with it, and you expect to use it to compete with one of the largest and most successful technology companies in existence today. Oh, and you appear to be spending millions of dollars advertising it on television. How many TV ads do you see for Google? That’s right, none. You know why? Anyone who uses the web already knows about it.
Enjoy your fifteen minutes of fame, KGB…
Categories: Tech Talk | 5 Comments »
Tech Talk
Thursday, July 16th, 2009A few interesting stories today from the world of technology…
1) Apple Blocks Palm Pre’s iTunes Compatibility
One of the features the Palm Pre boasted upon launch was the ability to synch with Apple’s popular iTunes software, so that songs purchased at iTunes would appear and play automatically on the Pre. Yesterday, Apple release iTunes, version 8.2.1 which addressed “an issue with verification of Apple devices.” In other words, they modified their software to prevent it from synching with the Palm Pre.
This is both disheartening and ineffective. Disheartening because Apple has long been after firms like Microsoft to publish open, standards-based specs in order to allow all software, devices, etc. to make use of all technology infrastructure. Seems we don’t “think different” so much when the monopoly shoe is on the other foot, huh? Furthermore, it’s ineffective because Palm Pre users can simply choose not to upgrade iTunes, and continue to enjoy automatic music synching. That is, until Apple adds a feature to iTunes that they really want. Oh, and by the way – according to the above-linked article, Palm sold about 55,000 Pre’s during it’s launch weekend, compared with Apple’s one million units sold when the iPhone 3GS debuted.
2) Twitter’s Google apps Hacked
It seems someone correctly guessed the answer to a Twitter employee’s password security question, then changed the employee’s password, then logged into his/her account, giving the hacker access to the entire suite of Google apps – documents, spreadsheets, calendar entries, e-mail, etc.. Twitter’s co-founder and creative director, Biz Stone, was quick to point out that this was not a security flaw in Google’s applications, but a broader issue of security for the cloud computing model. In response, thousands of Google app users around the world said, “what’s the difference, exactly?” At least the incident led to a priceless quote like this one: “Just putting a pet’s name on a Facebook page could allow hackers to obtain your password.”
3) Michael Jackson Music is #1 for Third Straight Week
While it’s interesting in itself that Michael Jackson’s music is topping the charts now that he’s dead (I thought that only worked for painters?), the fascinating technical angle here is the sales channel choice. It seems that in the hours after his death, online sales of his music spiked dramatically. Now, three weeks later, online sales have stabilized, and fans are rushing to music stores to buy CD’s. I have two theories here: first, that online sales are more immediate, so the group of people that wanted his music immediately upon his death grabbed it online, and the people who weren’t in as much of a rush waited until they were in stores. Second, the physical CD probably contains pictures, liner notes, etc. related to Jackson, and the fans saw these as more valuable now that he’s gone. In any case, I’m sure music retailers everywhere are learning from this interesting trend.
Categories: Tech Talk | 2 Comments »