Misc. Ramblings

How to Hate Microsoft. Microsoft (MS for short) employee Robert Scoble has his own blog (visit it here). He put up a question intended, I think, to provoke comment on how to make Longhorn (codename for the next version of Windows) better. The subject of the post is "How to Hate Microsoft."

But I think he asked the wrong question because if a broken trust exists, it doesn't matter what features Longhorn has, it will be a failure.

In any case, I think he succeeded in his intention to get comments. You can read the post here. The comments scroll down for pages. Some say Longhorn should be more like Unix/Linux while others say it should be the opposite. Some love MS and some hate it.

But the thread that seemed common to many of the comments is that people don't trust MS. Permit me to display how old I am when I relate this example. Many years ago, I drove a new 1978 Chevrolet Z-28 Camaro (see an example of what it looked like here). I thought it was a great car. It was low and mean looking, handled well, and could blow the doors off of cars costing three times its price ($6,000USD).

But did I trust Chevrolet? I don't know if I would say that. Although to a certain extent I did, otherwise I wouldn't have bought the car in the first place. But perhaps it wasn't so much I trusted, or didn't trust, them as much as I wanted the car and felt I could deal with any problems an untrust worthy manufacturer might throw my way.

Move forward 25 years and I'm now driving a Toyota. Do I trust Toyota? To the extent that it is possible to trust a non-human entity I would say yes, I do. I trust that its business model is based on designing and manufacturing vehicles that are high quality but reasonably priced. Why do I trust Toyota? Because they do what they say. That is, my experience indicates that the company in fact builds quality vehicles at a reasonable price. Our two Toyotas have been virtually trouble free. If something does goes wrong, under warranty, they fix it. Once, they even fixed something that was no longer under warranty because past experience had shown an abnormal amount of failures in the part. So they fixed it at no charge.

Conversely, look at MS. Do they always do as they say? Various state prosecutors and a couple of federal judges would say no and have the facts to back it up. Do they have a good warranty and stand behind it? Warranty? What's that? Isn't that what they used to call a disclaimer? That is, a document stating that there is no warranty whatsoever?

In addition, how can anyone trust them when they have made it clear they don't trust its customers? Let me tell you about one example from the site: MS now uses product activation to reduce copy right infringement (with digital rights management apparently to come). They even go so far as to write their security updates, which correct flaws in their product, such that if the copy you have is not "legal", the update will not install. Doing this creates an entire class of servers/PCs that are security risks to the rest of us. These computers are open to every worm, Trojan horse, hacker, etc. out there. Is this how corporations build trust?

Other examples: How many times has MS security updates broken fixes made by earlier updates? How many buffer overruns does there need to be before MS finally "gets it" and eliminates every_single_one_of them? How many badly implemented features will it take before MS understands that it is security first, last, and always? If they have product activation, why don't they have product deactivation so that I can legally transfer the product from an old PC, that I won't be using to a new one (without having to call MS to explain what I'm doing with a product I paid for).

Even worse, this lack of trust works both ways. I recently received an e-mail from MS asking if I wanted to provide additional information as to why XP seems to be locking up a lot. Okay, I reckon if I can give MS information that can make Windows more stable that is a Good Thing. But the way MS wanted to gather the information was via a downloadable program that would automatically collect the data MS wants, and it was A LOT even though MS insists it isn't (see it here), and would automatically send it in binary format.

To put it plainly, I would have no control over what was sent to them nor when it was sent. Being that the data was in binary format, even if I wanted to look at what was being transmitted I couldn't easily do that so if I were to proceed, I would have to trust that MS was doing what they said they were doing.

A few thoughts on what MS is saying. If, as it says, they aren't collecting much data, why send it as a binary? Why say they are sending the data back in binary format to keep the transmission as small as possible so the impact to your PC is lessened if it is so small to begin with? Why say it would be too complicated to write a program to show, in plain text, what was being transmitted when they wrote a program to convert it to binary in the first place? To be charitable, they seem to be speaking in contradictions.

I wish I could trust MS because it would make life so much easier. But, based on what they do, I can't. So we both loose. MS doesn't get what they want (data on why Windows is blowing up) and I don't get a reliable operating system.

So what's the bottom line on how do improve the Windows? First, build trust between MS and its customers by telling them what and why they are doing things. Do it. Then verify to everyone that what they did is exactly what they said they would do. Do that every time and people will slowly begin to trust you. Don't follow this advice, even just once, and you will break this trust. For a long, long time.

Aloha!

Picture This. Not only does the site dslreports.com have reports on broadband providers (well, duh) but they also have a cool section of photos taken by contributers (see it here). The images come in various resolutions up to 1600 X 1024. Check it out, if you have a broadband connection ;>

Walled Off. Like keeping warm in the winter, security on the Internet is about layering. For example, even if you have a perimeter firewall built into your router you still need something to block attacks coming through in the form of email or web-based attacks. To continue the analogy, you also need to have anti-virus software to stop attacks that have gotten past your first line of defense and an operating system that has all of the latest security patches installed. However, today's post will concentrate on PC-based software firewalls.

One of the more popular software-based firewalls is ZoneAlarm (see it here). It not only closes the doors to hackers from outside, but it also monitors outgoing connections to guard against Trojan horse programs phoning home.

But, for whatever reason, if you want to check out a couple of other solutions you might want to take a look at Agnitum Outpost (see it here) or Kerio Personal Firewall (see it here). Both have versions that are "free", although the free version of Outpost appears to be an older version with fewer features. I have not tried either of them but if ZoneAlarm is giving you problems and you want to take a look at some alternatives, these two would be a place to start.

For those wanting to know about other solutions, Agnitum also has a nice comparison chart here (needless to say, consider the source when viewing the chart) that shows the major players in this field. Pick one that works for you and use it.

Aloha!

As you might expect, my wallpaper for the week is from the dslreports site that I mentioned yesterday. This one is a shot of one of those plasma thingies. There are a bunch of others so if you have a broadband connection I encourage everyone to take a look at what they have.

Just when you thought it was safe, the money grubbers have gotten to the US Senate and the likelihood that Internet access will now be taxed grows each day. In fact, as of this past weekend, when the current moratorium expired, the way is clear for each state to immediately impose an Internet access tax.

From what was first seen as a slam dunk, a bill that would permanently exempt access to the Internet from taxes is now in deep jeopardy as special interest groups, like the National Governor's Association, lobby hard against the prohibition.

What it comes down to is these groups see nothing but the dollars they can take from your pocket if they could only tax you for accessing the Internet. This includes nascent technologies like WiFi and Voice over IP. If you don't want to pay yet another tax, contact your Senator and let them know how you feel. Do it right now because it may already be later than you think.

As most of my 11 long-term readers know, I work as a Program Evaluation Analyst for the State of Hawai'i Judiciary. Some of you probably wonder what such an analyst does so I've put together a few short paragraphs, based on what I think are some good definitions from various sources and meshed it with what I think is important.

What is program evaluation?

Evaluation pertains to the systematic examination of events or conditions that have (or are presumed to have) occurred at an earlier time or that are unfolding as the evaluation takes place. But to be examined, these events or conditions must exist, must be objectively describable, and must have occurred or be occurring. Evaluation is, thus, retrospective in that the emphasis is on what has been or is being observed, not on what is likely to happen (as would be the case in forecasting).

Why do program evaluations?

From a global perspective, the ultimate goal of scientific research is finding relations between variables. The philosophy of science teaches us that there is no other way of representing "meaning" except in terms of relations between some quantities or qualities. So on this level, evaluation provides a structure in which understanding can take place.

From a more concrete perspective, program evaluation provides some of the data that decision makers can use when determining what programs to continue at its present level of support, those that need to be modified, and those that should be terminated. They can do this because, if done well, the data can be relied upon to be objective, accurate, and relevant. The data will indicate whether a program is effective in meeting its objectives and if not, suggest where it can be improved.

Such a review needs to be done, if for no other reason, because resources are finite and therefore need to be prioritized. While the effectiveness of a program is surely not the only criteria to be used in apportioning our limited resources, it is a very important one.

But beyond determining if the program objectives are being met, an evaluation should answer the question of whether the results are producing the desired changes (sometimes referred to as outcomes)? That is, are the program objectives relevant indicators of the goal of the program?

Even though the program may be meeting its objectives, that does not mean it is meeting its goal. Hence, a large part of program evaluation includes clarifying goals and objectives. For example, if the goal is to reduce the recidivism rate of illegal drug users, then having an objective that merely lists how many pages have been photo-copied and distributed to users probably will not be sufficient, in and of itself, to determine effectiveness in reducing long-term illegal drug use.

In the end, program evaluation is critical because it gives decision makers the information they need to make rational, informed decisions regarding the status of all programs and a framework within which to prioritize what should be funded and at what level of support.

Aloha!

I'm beginning to become somewhat of a media junky. By that I mean I've added a couple of journalism related blogs to my morning journey through cyberspace. Yesterday I came across the blog of Terry Heaton, He has a series of essays about postmodern journalism and what are the implications for change.

Here's just one snippet:

Postmodernism doesn't make sense. Its roots are buried in chaos and chance. Taking a page from MTV's playbook and inserting it into CNN's is like trying to mate a lion with a sheep in order to produce a more gentle lion. Excitement and anticipation? Oh sure, but ultimately the lion just ends up with a tasty meal.

Thanks to Ian Lind for the link.

Busy day today so I gotta go. Have a good one.

Aloha!

"War is a horrible, horrible, horrible thing. There is nothing good about it. But it is sometimes necessary. And so somebody better be good at it." An excerpt from a speech at the US Air Force Academy in 1999 by an Air Force veteran of Gulf War I. He recounts the things that he remembers most about operation Desert Storm. Some are sights, some like the sample paragraph below, are sounds. All are about ordinary people doing extraordinary things. If you have the time, follow the link and read the whole thing. Thanks to Dr. Pournelle for the link.

The other unforgettable thing I heard came after the ground war had started. An F-16 was shot down in the middle of the retreating Republican Guard, and I mean right in the middle of them. A call went out from AWACS for any aircraft with ordnance remaining and the fuel to get to where the pilot was down, in case they needed 'em for SARCAP. A lot of people responded, but the first one I really paid attention to was an Army Chinook helicopter pilot, who came on the radio and said, "Look, I've got this much gas, here's my location, I can be there in that many minutes, give me his coordinates-I can pick him up." Now, everybody knew where the Republican Guard was, and everybody knew the downed pilot was right in the middle of them. You gotta remember a Chinook is about the size of a double-decker London bus with props on it. And it doesn't have guns! We kid around a lot about interservice rivalries, but I guarantee you I would follow that Army helicopter pilot into combat...and I'll never forget her voice...

And now for some humor:

An Army General, a Marine General and a Navy Admiral are all sitting around discussing whose's service is better and whose troops are the bravest?

The Admiral (well into his second or third ice tea) announces to the group, " My SEALS are the BEST in the world and to prove it I'll have one do the impossible" as he reaches for the phone.

Well the other two commanders are in an uproar and each one promptly calls for his best soldier.

When all three representatives have arrived, the Admiral states "Since it was my idea, I'm first" and turning to the SEAL, he says " I want you to go down that cliff, swim across those 10 miles of shark infested waters, climb up that shear cliff and return with with 2 bird eggs... unbroken of course.".

The SEAL (being the highly trained soldier that he is) turned running towards the cliff. After performing a triple-somersault into the water, the SEAL swam across the 10 miles (all the while beating off sharks with his bare hands) and reaching the far cliff, he began climbing. Near the top of the cliff, he grabs the two eggs and starts back down (all the time, fighting off mean birds). Upon reaching the sea he swims back across (once again fighting off sharks) and climbs back up the first cliff. He then runs back over to the Admiral and hands him the 2 unbroken eggs.

The Marine General says "that wasn't nothing," and turning to the Force Recon Marine he says " I want you to go down that cliff, swim across those waters, climb that other cliff,then move across the 4 miles of unmapped jungle and bring me back 2 eggs from the mountain on the other side of the jungle."

And with that the Force Recon moved-out. Traveling down the cliff, swimming across the sea, climbing the far cliff, moving through the jungle and upon reaching the 2 eggs, he heads back (all the while fighting off lions, tigers, bears, sharks, and mean birds). Finally reaching the General, the Marine hands him the eggs.

The Army General then says "Very nice gentlemen, but heres true bravery" and turning towards his BEST (an Airborne Infantryman), he says "I want you to go down that cliff, across that sea, up the far cliff, through the 4 miles of unmapped jungle, over the mountain and bring me back 2 eggs from the forest on the other side."

The Paratrooper looks at the General, then the cliff, and again back to the General, where he says "SCREW YOU SIR!", renders a proper hand salute and walks away.

The General turn towards the other two (both with their jaws on the table) and says "Now gentlemen, thats BRAVERY."

Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!

As is usual around this time of year, things are getting a little busy. Most of this is tied to the legislature starting up in a few months. So in order to be ready for that, we have to start now. Right now I'm working on some salary projections based on various scenarios using escalators such as the Consumer Price Index, what other jurisdictions pay, and what local employers are paying. Setting salaries is a touchy subject so I will say no more.

In addition, tomorrow is a US holiday (Veteran's Day) so no post for tomorrow.

Aloha!

Speaking of Salaries (as I was in Monday's post). CBS MarketWatch has the Top 10 Most Overpaid Jobs. From wedding photographer to mutual-fund managers. From airport skycaps to real estate agents.

Jakob Nielsen, Mr. Usability himself, has his own top 10 list. Ten Most Violated Homepage Design Guidelines (the first should have been to keep headlines to fewer words - Ed.). From frozen design layouts using tiny type sizes to meaningless graphics to having a link to the home page on the home page.

RU Tuned In? Over at Time, they have their Invention of the Year. I guess, not so strangely, the invention is not really a thing, but a service. As in Apple's iTunes. Runner ups include camera phones, Dean Kaman designed water distiller, Robo-Lobster and Robo-Cat (I'm not making this up).

Another busy day working on spread sheets with various salary projection scenarios so I gotta go.

Aloha!

We are doomed to repeat our mistakes. Awhile back I talked about Our Governor proposing to increase taxes to fund her new mass (as in too poor to own a Mercedes SUV) transportation system even though she and her fellow Republicans campaigned on a no new taxes platform. I also stated Democrats would not oppose the increase because of the financial benefits that would also accrue to them from all the proposed construction projects.

What I did not expect was Democrats wanting to trump the Governor by increasing taxes even more than she wants so that pet projects critical public service programs can be funded in the home districts of said Democrats. I guess one should never under estimate the stupidity short-sightedness of some politicians. Even as these Democrats push for higher taxes the voters are taking names and will remember them on election day.

Interestingly enough, the only people, other than tax payers, that are protesting the proposed tax increases are her fellow Republicans. Most, if not all, of her fellow travelers (to coin a phrase) have disavowed ever knowing the Governor and are refusing to support the proposal.

Now, let me say that we haven't had an excise tax increase in decades, all the while costs have been going up. So, perhaps a case could be made that we should do so now. But that case has not yet been made and if it isn't, the only mass transit that will occur is the one that transports the loosing Democrats out of the Legislature.

Government can be a huge waste of resources. There, I've said it. One of the things I do not miss from my days as a Budget Analyst is doing what-if scenarios. That is, creating financial spreadsheets that forecast costs based on various factors. Don't get me wrong, being open to innovative solutions is a Good Thing. But randomly casting about, by creating multiple scenarios that will never happen, is a huge waste of time.

This waste of time eats up countless man-hours of work and serves no purpose. For example, when I was with the Hawai'i Senate Committee on Ways and Means, each scenario would consume several hundred pages of printouts. The preparation of said printouts would take days. Heck, just trying to be sure the numbers balanced took countless hours. We did this, even though we tried to get the Senators to read simple summary spreadsheets that would give them the same information, but in a much quicker and more understandable and flexible format. But nooooo. They refused to budge and wanted multiple scenarios, none of which would have any chance of passing, created using an old mainframe-based computer system.

While I genuinely like and respect my bosses, it is very difficult to work under these conditions. Now that I'm being dragged into doing scenarios again, I'm beginning to get some of the old feelings of frustration. It's one thing to be told to do these things. But it's another to be told, and in the same breath, be told that they will not be used. So why do it? I dunno know. I just work here.

A Story of Creation
In the beginning, God created heaven and earth.

Shortly thereafter God was in receipt of a notice to show cause why He shouldn't be cited for failure to file an environmental impact statement. He was granted a temporary planning permit for the project, but was stymied by a Cease and Desist Order for the earthly part.

At the hearing, God was asked why He began His earthly project in the first place. He replied that He just liked to be creative.

Then God said, "Let there be light."

Officials immediately demanded to know how the light would be made. Would it require strip mining? What about thermal pollution?

God explained that the light would come from a huge ball of fire, and provisional approval was granted with the proviso that no smoke would result.

The authorities demanded the issuance of a building permit, and (to conserve energy) required that the light be left off half the time. God agreed, saying He would call the light "Day" and the darkness "Night." Officials replied that they were only interested in protecting the environment, not in semantics.

God said, "Let the earth bring forth green herb and such as many seed."

The EPA agreed, so long as only native seed was used.

Then God said, "Let waters bring forth creeping creatures having life; and the fowl that may fly over the earth."

Officials pointed out this would require approval from the Department of Game coordinated with the Heavenly Wildlife Federation and the Audubongelic Society.

Everything went along smoothly until God declared that He intended to complete the project in six days.

Officials informed God it would take at least 200 days to review His many waiver applications and environmental impact statements. After that there would have to be a public hearing, and then there would be a 10-12 month probationary period before....

At this point, God created Hell. But as that name was already held by a private company incorporated in Aruba and had patented the name, He instead called it "Government".

How Government Works
Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert.

Congress said,"Someone may steal from it at night." So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.

Then Congress said,"How does the watchman do his job without instruction?" So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions, and one person to do time studies.

Then Congress said,"How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?" So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people. One to do the studies and one to write the reports.

Then Congress said,"How are these people going to get paid?" So they created the following positions, a time keeper, and a payroll officer, then hired two people.

Then Congress said,"Who will be accountable for all of these people?" So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.

Then Congress said,"We have had this command in operation for one year and we are $18,000 over budget, we must cutback overall cost." So they laid off the night watchman.

Three Boys
Three boys are in the schoolyard bragging of how great their fathers are.

The first one says:"Well, my father runs the fastest. He can fire an arrow, and start to run, I tell you, he gets there before the arrow".

The second one says:"Ha! You think that's fast! My father is a hunter. He can shoot his gun and be there before the bullet".

The third one listens to the other two and shakes his head. He then says:"You two know nothing about fast. My father is a civil servant. He stops working at 4:30 and he is home by 3:45"!!

Aloha!

The New Despotism. Read this interview with author Gore Vidal on Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams, and do I dare use his name in the same company as these giants of U.S. history, George Bush.

In this context, would any of the Founding Fathers find themselves comfortable in the current political system of the United States? Certainly Jefferson wouldn't. But what about the radical centralizers, or those like John Adams, who had a sneaking sympathy for the monarchy?

Adams thought monarchy, as tamed and balanced by the parliament, could offer democracy. But he was no totalitarian, not by any means. Hamilton, on the other hand, might have very well gone along with the Bush people, because he believed there was an elite who should govern. He nevertheless was a bastard born in the West Indies, and he was always a little nervous about his own social station. He, of course, married into wealth and became an aristo. And it is he who argues that we must have a government made up of the very best people, meaning the rich.

So you'd find Hamilton pretty much on the Bush side. But I can't think of any other Founders who would. Adams would surely disapprove of Bush. He was highly moral, and I don’t think he could endure the current dishonestly. Already they were pretty bugged by a bunch of journalists who came over from Ireland and such places and were telling Americans how to do things. You know, like Andrew Sullivan today telling us how to be. I think you would find a sort of union of discontent with Bush among the Founders. The sort of despotism that overcomes us now is precisely what Franklin predicted.

But Gore, you have lived through a number of inglorious administrations in your lifetime, from Truman's founding of the national-security state, to LBJ’s debacle in Vietnam, to Nixon and Watergate, and yet here you are to tell the tale. So when it comes to this Bush administration, are you really talking about despots per se? Or is this really just one more rather corrupt and foolish Republican administration?

No. We are talking about despotism. I have read not only the first PATRIOT Act but also the second one, which has not yet been totally made public nor approved by Congress and to which there is already great resistance. An American citizen can be fingered as a terrorist, and with what proof? No proof. All you need is the word of the attorney general or maybe the president himself. You can then be locked up without access to a lawyer, and then tried by military tribunal and even executed. Or, in a brand-new wrinkle, you can be exiled, stripped of your citizenship and packed off to another place not even organized as a country — like Tierra del Fuego or some rock in the Pacific. All of this is in the USA PATRIOT Act. The Founding Fathers would have found this to be despotism in spades. And they would have hanged anybody who tried to get this through the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Hanged.

Seti call home. Those of you using seti@home may want to update your software to version 3.08. It seems there is a buffer overflow condition that could be exploited by an attacker. Said attacker would then be able to execute arbitrary code on your PC. In other words, the l33t hax0rs would ownz U.

ZDNet has a story on subpoenas filed in U.S. District Court in Utah against Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, The Open Source Development Labs, and others. The subpoenas are part of SCO's suit filed in March alleging that IBM illegally incorporated trade secrets from UNIX into Linux. IBM responded with its own set of subpoenas in October and now SCO is responding with more legal filings.

In my opinion, it is difficult to see the good that will come of this. SCO insists they are merely protecting their intellectual property rights, as well they should. However, there appears room for interpretation as to what rights SCO may have as it pertains to UnixWare and Linux. One must also remember that SCO views Linux as a competitor to UnixWare, and as such, these legal moves appear more as a business strategy to remove such competition than protecting their rights. YMMV.

Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!

Surf's Up, Don'tcha Know? People surf the waves all over the world. From the home of surfing in Hawai'i, to California, Australia, and Florida. But who would have thought of Sheboygan, Wisconsin? Yes, even in far off, and very chilly Wisconsin, the Aloha Spirit has spread the word of surfing. See the story here. Hang loose, brah.

On a Completely Different Note, Let's talk about hypocrisy. Yes, politicians are low hanging fruit when it comes to talking about hypocritical behavior, but that's because they are so richly deserving. For example, the Republicans are complaining about the Democrats blocking the confirmation of four potential life long federal judges. One must remember that this is the very same Republican Congress that blocked 60 of President Clinton's nominations. On the other hand, Democrats have so far confirmed 168 of President Bush's nominations. So how is it that Republicans have any right to complain?

For a local example, property owners are up in arms about a proposed city ordinance that would increase the size of parking spaces by three inches (~7.6cm). That's right, three more inches to shoe-horn those massive SUVs who insist it is their right to park in "compact" sized stalls (these are the very same folks who claim to be disabled and therefore have a right to park in disabled only stalls). Oh the horror! Oh the humanity! Think of the huge cost to the property owners to re-stripe the spaces (required only when they would otherwise do re-striping anyway)!

How soon we forget that these very same property owners, with the aid of compliant local politicians, pushed through an amendment to the then current ordinance to downsize the spaces so the owners could increase the numbers of spaces in a given area. How soon we forget that they didn't complain one bit about the millions of dollars they spent to immediately re-stripe those stalls.

All I can say is get out of your chairs. Go to your windows. Open the window. Stick your head out and shout: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." Oh wait, that's been done before. Well then, remember these people and don't vote for them next year.

Aloha!

Abandon All Hope. What if there were no effective technical solution to spam? There are those of us who still think the majority of the people do not mean to cause harm to the Internet. But then there are the spammers who once again prove the Tragedy of the Commons. That is, there is an individual economic incentive to destroy the thing that is providing for your very existence. At least, this is the argument that I think DiveIntoMark is trying to make when he says spammers will win the battle of comment spam on content management systems like MovableType.

It seems Jay Allen, of MT-Blacklist fame, is starting a global effort against comment spam. DiveIntoMark apparently feels it won't work. That, in fact, the spammers are faster and more agile than any individual trying to stop them. That they will turn and attack Mr. Allen. That since there is no way to "win" the war against spam Jay should, I guess, just roll over and play dead.

Maybe DiveIntoMark is right. There are many instances of where the tragedy occurs. We see it here in Hawai'i where the fish which were in such abundance are now completely gone. Where the rolling hills were once covered in green trees are now completely gone. Where the fresh waters once ran clean and clear are now either completely gone or so polluted it has to be infused with poisons like chlorine just to drink it. But that does not mean it has to be that way. The solution, if not technical in nature, can and perhaps should be, economic.

What that economic solution would look like I can't say. But as far as I'm concerned, I think Mr. Allen is at least trying to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

On the Other Hand. According to an article from CNN, the end of pop-up spam may be in sight. Now that Microsoft, who sells pop-up ads in its HotMail site, is saying they will include a pop-up filter to disable such ads in their Internet Explorer, it may decrease the utility of said ads. Of course, never believe that the advertisers will just sit back and do nothing. They will, I'm sure, try to program around filters by using javascript (another reason to disable javascript) or other means to fool the filters. But at least, we hope, the change to IE will make a major economic dent in their revenues.

Aloha!

I've finally got around to installing an RSS feed aggregator. For no particular reason other than I found them first, I chose to install a .Net 1.1-based (i.e., executes like Vermont molasses in December) program called SharpReader and something called FeedDemon. There are a bunch of similar aggregators out there so feel free to choose whichever you find useful.

What it's about is getting short snippets or headlines of what someone has just posted (at least in the weblog world. It can be used in other contexts). So if you want to get a wider range of news, while at the same time not having to actually go to each site to check on what's new, the aggregator can make more productive use of your time. On the other hand, if you only hit a handful of sites each day, you probably don't need one.

But now that I've seen how one works, I think I will be changing the format of my posts. For awhile now, I've been just using the days of the week as a headline. Looking at this in an aggregator doesn't give you any useful information to decide whether to click on a link or not. So I will try to have headlines that encapsulate what the post is about so those of you who use feeds can make an informed decision (or at least as informed as you can get with headlines).

In addition, rather than including several subjects under one posting, I may break them up into separate posts so that each has its own headline. I originally was doing that but got tired of having to publish individual sections rather than just one. I'll have to see if it's worth the trouble to do so (especially as there aren't that many people using aggregators anyway).

Aloha!

For you gardeners out there, and you know who you are, comes the latest from that Tasmanian devil Jonathan Sturm. His The Pompous Git's Guide to Gardening, the Universe and Everything! can be read by following the link. "WARNING! This book contains graphic and explicit descriptions of traditional agricultural and horticultural practices, including seed sowing, harvesting, cultivation of the soil and weed control!" You have been warned so don't come crying to me if hair starts to grow on your hands after reading this. ;>

Ron Pacheco has a tutorial on how to reduce noise found in some digital images. The process is not for every image nor everyone because you can spend a lot of time and get a very small bit of improvement. In addition, if you overdo the corrections you can end up with an image that looks worse than what you started with. But, like any tool, if used right it can make a difference.

I'm running late this morning so I gotta go.

Aloha!

In what some are calling the wave of the future comes now the Mac G4 CubeQuarium. The water cooled G4 has yet to be run against the usual test suites but we are assured it should create a bit of a splash.

The Houston Chronicle says NASA is finally getting around to creating a long-term plan that would return astronauts to the moon and then on to Mars. The first order of business is to get the shuttle flying again. Next is a replacement for the shuttle called the Orbital Space Plane and the completion of the International Space Station.

While I can't recommend the Hawking Tech FR24 Dual WAN router (see my earlier posts here, here, here, here, here, and here) I hear from some people about an reported problem with throughput. Apparently, some people are having problems with the FR24 locking up and these users feel the cause is an inability of the FR24 to handle the bandwidth of their speedy cable modems.

But, as far as I know, no one has a modem running at over 9Mbps! SmallNetBuilder did a review of the FR24 and found a transfer rate of 9.4Mbps. I figure that's fast enough for even the fastest cable modem service anywhere in the U.S.

Having said that, the FR24 still has a bunch of problems. Let's recap what I had. First, from what I understand, it will load balance your two connections only if the connections are from the same provider using the same DNS. If, like I did, you are using two different providers acting as a fail over, you are out of luck for load balancing. Second, even if you have two connections from the same provider, the balancing to the second connection will only occur if the request to the connection is coming from another computer on your network. Hence, your computer will not see any speed increase, but someone else on another computer will not be slowed down by your network activity. Finally, setting the FR24 to bring online the second connection only when the first goes down did eventually work but was not reliably so. No matter how I tried setting it up, the FR24 simply failed to consistently switch over, even if I unplugged the primary connection, the FR24 would sometimes fail to switch to the secondary.

To be fair, I understand that there have been a couple of firmware updates. Whether these fix the problems with lockups and automatic failover I can't say. Perhaps, some weekend when I have the time I'll hookup the FR24 and see if it works more reliably than it did before.

Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!

According to a TechCentral column, MP3.com is soon to be dead. MP3, the premier site for discovering music from independent bands, created a marketplace where everyone could listen to and legally download music. It was sort of the Internet equivalent of the small college radio station that played anything and everything. It was a place to discover music that you would not otherwise have heard anywhere else, much less the homogenized mega-commercial mega-radio stations of today.

Perhaps it was ahead of it's time, with a business plan that rode the wave of the dot com debauchery, but it will be missed because what is replacing it will not have the same feeling.

It's that time of the year when the awards are being handed out. PC magazine has their Technical Excellence Awards and Best of Comdex Awards.

Some highlight are: Technical Excellence System Software - VMware ESX Server 2 and Virtual SMP and for Comdex "Best in Show" - Microsoft Small Business Server 2003.

This tip from Brian Livingston's Newsletter:

A friend of mine was downloading Service Pack 4 for Windows 2000 on his laptop when his system locked up and gave him the Blue Screen of Death. Microsoft acknowledged that this does happen sometimes, and the only solution was to reformat his hard drive and reinstall Win2K.

He came to me because he had a substantial amount of data on his system that he couldn't afford to lose. In essence, what I did was boot to a floppy and then re-size the existing NTFS partition with Partition Magic. Next I created a new FAT partition and installed a new copy of Win2K on this partition.

Once the Win2K installation was complete, I had this installation of Win2K recognize the NTFS partition and, presto, all of his data was accessible. I've left out a few steps, but to me this seems like it's pretty easy to get to this data.

As many of you know, using the Windows NTFS file system has advantages and disadvantages. One characteristic that could be viewed as a disadvantage is the inability to boot from a DOS disk and have access to the NTFS volume(s) on your hard drive. Which, if you think about it, is logical. DOS does not support NTFS so if you boot from a DOS diskette you shouldn't expect to see any of your NTFS volumes.

As an alternative, you can boot from the install CD but it's setup to do either a repair or clean install. The repair install may be able to do what you want, but there is another way.

You can use something called Bart's PE Builder. It runs on Win2K, XP, and 2003 (what they heck is 2003? Are they talking about server editions? - Ed.) but not NT4 or, of course Win9x and ME. Among other things, the CD allows you to:

• Access very large (>2TB) NTFS volumes or access volumes that are not seen by the BIOS, like some fiber channel disks.

• Very reliable scanning and cleaning of viruses using a "clean boot".

• Active Directory support.

• Have remote control over other machines, using vnc or remote desktop.

In order to create the CD you will need your original Windows install CD and more than a passing understanding of Windows (which all of my 11 readers already have, right?). As always, use at your own risk and insert disclaimer here.

Paging AirIndia passenger Arheddis Varkenjaab, that's passenger Arheddis Varkenjaab, please pickup the white courtesy phone. The Sunday Mirror has a story about practical jokers tricking Heathrow airport officials into paging for passengers whose names, when pronounced sound like something other than how they are spelled.

Aloha!

In a stunning turnaround, the Houston Chronicle is reporting that PC maker Dell is returning some customer support jobs back to the US. Dell, trying to cut costs, was one of the first companies to rush support jobs to India. However, it soon became clear that its corporate accounts were not satisfied with this lower level of support and threatened to switch. Faced with this possible mass defection to its competition, Dell is now bringing back the jobs, but only for its corporate customers. You individuals out there are still out of luck.

On a personal note, if the experience of our secretary, who bought a Dell and had to call customer support to resolve some problems, is any indication you will need every bit of luck because Dells support sucks. She had to call Dell multiple times to resolve her problem. In an attempt to speak to the same person each time, rather than explain again what the problem was, she had to synchronize her calls with office hours in India. But even she could soon tell that the people she was speaking with had a limited script to work from and if the problem lay outside of that script, you were not going to get any help. YMMV. Use at your own risk.

Sun's StarOffice 7 Office Suite, the big brother to OpenOffice came out recently and I decided to pick up a copy (MSRP $79.95).

Any office suite that wants to take on Microsoft Office (as most do) has to be compatible with its file formats and StarOffice does a pretty good job. I have not run it through any kind of test suite, but it read our 120-page masters capstone project (created in Word 2000) and I found only three problems.

The first is the pagination changed. I'm not sure if I tried to set the default margins it would have kept the page breaks but in a document this large, having to go through it page by page to check the breaks is not a Good Thing.

The second is an embedded bullet list. The list shows a numbered list with bullets within the numbers. To be fair, I had a heck of a time formatting the list in MS Office so it shouldn't be a surprise that StarOffice also had problems.

The last problem is with the margins for some imported Excel spreadsheets. The print area was wider than the page and would required some reformatting to fit.

For the most part, I consider these problems as being minor but only you can decide how important they are.

As for me, I still need to test how well a WordPerfect document, which StarOffice, unlike OpenOffice, is supposed to be able to open and edit, works. But if you don't need WordPerfect compatibility, and don't want to send a lot of money to Redmond, you may want to check it out.

George Soros in an Alantic article talks about power and how President Bush and the so called neocons have used it post September 11th. Once again, there is evidence that the events of September 11th were used by the neocons as an excuse to push their agenda. I've talked about the domestic changes that were rammed through Congress but this article talks about the foreign policy angle. Namely, the US will use its power to maintain its military hegemony and more importantly, use that power in pre-emptive strikes against anyone who is seen as a threat. Or as Sofos puts it:

[T]he doctrine establishes two classes of sovereignty: the sovereignty of the United States, which takes precedence over international treaties and obligations; and the sovereignty of all other states, which is subject to the will of the United States. This is reminiscent of George Orwell's Animal Farm: all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Aloha!

Fellow Daynoter Phil Hough has a good post on traffic cameras in the UK. Namely, that traffic cameras tend to be situated such that much revenue is generated but safety is, at best, a secondary consideration. That is, the cameras are not placed in areas where there have been the most collisions/deaths, rather they are placed where it will generate the most money.

It is possible to look at this situation from various perspectives. From a budget point of view, it is important to some people to show that you are running government like a business. Hence, you must show a profit (or at least no deficit). The problem in this situation is that the goal is, or at least should be, to reduce collisions/deaths, not make money. In fact, it may be impossible to make money if you only place the cameras where deaths have occurred because, thank God, the numbers have been decreasing over the years (pdf file). In fact, the only statistic that has been increasing have been alcohol related deaths (we'll come back to that later).

From a political point of view, getting elected is job one. One way of doing this is to show that you are doing things. What you are doing may not solve a problem, indeed, you may actually create worse ones. But the bad results won't be known for awhile and the act of doing something is seen now. Indeed, you can create a 30-second political spot showing you are a man/woman of action and no one could point to anything negative. So, when your constituents come to you and ask, nay demand that you do something about the carnage on the carriageway, you can install a traffic cam, along with the attendant hoopla (knowing full well that it will be ineffective in lowering crashes because most are caused by people who drink while under the influence of alcohol).

From a power perspective, this is a marvelous example of using adverse consequences (paying a large fine and/or higher insurance rates) to change behavior. It is Big Brother looking over your shoulder and recording your actions. But it only works if you are thinking about the consequences because if you are under the influence alcohol, you probably are no longer thinking.

In the end, using traffic cameras to control speed tries to treat an irrelevant but easy to detect symptom (speeding). But does nothing to cure the disease - driving under the influence, because it isn't speed that is causing the crashes. Rather, it's people who drink and drive. Figure out how to stop that and you make the highways safer for everyone. Thanks to Phil for the timely seasonal post.

I tried to leave a comment on Microsoft employee Robert Scoble's site yesterday but his comment window did not display the full text of what I had written in [gasp] MS Word and copied into the comments section</irony>. So I am reproducing here what I meant to say there in relation to his request for comments on how to create a win-win situation re: MS.

You asked how to create a win-win situation. So here's a couple based on the asymmetrical relationship between Microsoft and its customers.

Let's start first with the warranty "EULA". You can use, for example, the one for Office XP found here.

Step 1: Create a quality product and then stand behind it with a warranty worth a damn.

When you buy your car it has a bumper-to-bumper warranty that last years. When you buy a TV you get a warranty that lasts at least a year, if not three. If something fails in either, and you are hurt because of it, you can collect damages against the manufacturer because they are responsible for the loss.

Contrast that with the paragraph numbered 9, where it says Microsoft is not responsible for any "incidental, consequential and certain other damages." To a small business owner, as I understand it, this means if the third quarter profits suddenly shifts and Office XP *doesn't* automatically pick up the changes because of a bug in the software, and thus the company goes into bankruptcy, that's just too damned bad because the full risk of using Microsoft software lies with you, the customer. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise that the software will do what is promised (by TV advertising or otherwise) it does.

Try making a product that you are willing to stand behind with a warranty that puts Microsoft assets in jeopardy. If nothing else, this should focus people's minds on quality and create a basis for trust that does not exist now.

Step 2: Make everything transparent.

For example, most people who use Windows XP are willing to let Microsoft know certain information when a program crashes. This is based on the trust that whatever information is transmitted to Microsoft is directly related to the crash and will be used solely to fix bugs in Windows. And nothing else. I say it's based on trust because the customer has, as far as I know, no way of knowing what is being transmitted to Microsoft.

Ratchet up that a bunch and think about the Microsoft Windows Feedback Panel. This is optional software, downloaded from Microsoft, gathers even more information. Go to this URL to see what is being recorded:

http://wfp.Microsoft.com/dcp.htm

Even if I trust Microsoft, why is it important for Microsoft to record the names and locations of all directories within the Program Files, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos? Further, why does Microsoft need to record a complete listing of all of my files in root?

And then, why is it critical to transmit all of this information in binary format without the customer being able to review and decide whether they want to transmit the information? There is no reciprocity here. Everything is asymmetrical. I am being asked to trust Microsoft without any way, as President Reagan said to "verify." Why not provide a way for the user to see what is being sent?

I have other examples posted on by weblog: http://www.seto.org/mt-diary/archives/2003_11_03.html#000246

Thank you for this opportunity to comment on this subject.

Aloha,

Dan

I talked earlier (see Monday) about a few small problems StarOffice 7 a had in importing an MS Word document. Today I'll take a look at how StarOffice does with a Corel WordPerfect 9 sample.

But first, let me say I like alternatives. Having a choice in office suites is, I think, a Good Thing. But if your office uses WordPerfect and you want to switch to Sun's StarOffice 7, you are in for a world of hurt.

As a test document, I used a fairly typical, for us, report. It is a little over 10-pages long (including two charts at the end), uses bulleted lists, and indented paragraphs to indicated extended quoted material. What you have could vary so you have to take what follows in the context of how you usually format your documents.

All of the problems I found are related to formatting. Rather than go through a long narrative, I'll just create a list:

• Failed to display and print out the watermark.

• Changed the font from Univers to Thorndale (a Times Roman clone).

• Ignored tab settings, substituting its own on a seemingly random basis.

• Failed to display all bullets.

• Substituted some, but not all, bullets with Roman Numerals.

• Inserted the following string in random places: 600160.0160.0160)0160)0160)0160)0160)060.0160.0160)

• Converted the footnote type size from eight points to something that looked like two points (even though it said it was 8 pts).

• Altered page breaks.

In addition, StarOffice opened the document in read only mode. This means I could look at the document, but could not edit it. I read the on-line help and found you have to click on the "Edit File" button to enable editing mode. This is very curious behavior for any program. One can only wonder why they have this mode and what advantage(s) they think it has. As for me, I consider it nonsensical.

In a marketplace dominated by Microsoft Office, alternatives are to be supported and praised. Unless, of course, the alternatives can't inter-operate with the documents you already have. In our case, many offices still use various versions of WordPerfect. But given the list of problems StarOffice 7 has in importing WordPerfect 9 documents, I can't recommend its use in such environments.

I wonder if Sun isn't missing a market segment that they could serve (WordPerfect users) rather than going after Microsoft? I think they could make a good return on investment going after the millions of users who still use WordPerfect (who everyone seems to have forgotten, or at least ignored) rather than being yet another clone of MS. As it is, Sun is also competing against OpenOffice which, at a price point of zero, is impossible to beat. YMMV.

Today is the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. Thanksgiving can have many meanings. For some, it is the calm before the storm of Christmas shopping. For others, it is a gathering of the clan where the generations come together to share in the bounty of this great land. And for the newest citizens, it is part of becoming whatever it is that makes our nation great.

But for me, 30 years ago today, I was an undergraduate student in southern California. My school was only about six hours by plane from home but it might as well as been a 100 as I could not afford to fly there for such a short time (the school break was typically about half-a-week). So I was looking forward to staying in the empty dorm and eating whatever I could heat up in my rice cooker.

Actually, no I wasn't. There are times when life can get awfully lonely. The holidays are one of those times. At least for me, anyway. Fortunately, a guy I knew from our floor in the dorm lived in town and invited me to his family's home for the holiday. To say I was thankful would be an understatement.

Through the kindness of a relative stranger, I got to enjoy a home cooked meal in an environment that is slowly dying in America: an intact family. A family made up of both parents and their son. Living in single-family dwelling. Where each is loved and cared for and values are more than what Wal*Mart is discounting on sale.

After stuffing ourselves on a great meal, we gathered in their living room and went through an album of old photographs. The pictures were black-and-white and were very old. Some of them were of a time when the parents were themselves in college. The conversation then got around to memories of their days at Loma Linda University (or what was then known as La Sierra College) and how they were friends with some people from Hawai'i.

While I realize this is indeed a small world, sometimes I'm surprised by just how small it is. First they talked about Ross and Ree Hiatt. Mr. Hiatt (even after all these years I still call him Mr. Hiatt), was to become my 7th and 8th grade teacher in elementary school. He and Mrs. Hiatt were married for 52-years before cancer suddenly took her life this year.

They then talked about a girl that they were all friends with. As they slowly turned the pages of the album, I was taken aback when I saw her picture. Her raven hair shining in the hot California sun. The smile, a little timid, perhaps from being so far away from home herself. Her eyes looking so much like my own. The girl who would one day become my mother.

There are lots of things to be thankful for today. I am thankful for a time in which families stayed together, 'til death do us part. I am thankful for Daryl Luthas' (now pastor Luthas, who would have thunk it, rascal that he was?) parents who taught their child to be an open, caring individual. I am thankful to my own parents for making the sacrifices they made so that I could attend a quality private college and be where I am today.

Thanks be to God from whom all blessings flow. And thanks mom and dad, I couldn't have made it without you.

Aloha!