Misc. Ramblings

Generally speaking, I've had very good DSL service from Verizon, as compared to (hawk, spit) Time/Warner Oceanic Cable (see my last post about Verizon here).

Recently, Verizon offered an increased speed to 3.0mbs down / 768kps up for $10 more than I've been paying per month. While it isn't the 15 mps that I've been hoping for via fiber, it is a doubling of speed so I decided to sign up.

This is where it gets difficult. Verizon is apparently divided up into at least three different divisions. They have one each for telephone, Internet, and wireless. While you would think, being one company, their sales people would be able to provide seamless service across all divisions (or at least be able to transfer me to the next division, as needed). But, you would be wrong.

Perhaps I assume too much, in this world of instant access, that communications across divisions shouldn't be an obstacle. But in my case, it seems to be.

I called the local Verizon sales office to sign-up for the higher speed DSL and to also enroll in a special "package" deal that includes long-distance. Said package would give me the speed increase but actually cost me $2 less, in total per month, than I am paying now.

After answering all kinds of questions about the package I was told I would need to call another number to sign-up for the DSL but that she could do the package sale. So we go through that process, which included my switching from another long-distance carrier to Verizon. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line the Verizon sales person got the wrong telephone number to switch over.

I didn't know about the wrong number until I tried to switch carriers (which required going through a third-party verification service) and they wanted to confirm the number I was changing service on. Of course, the number they gave me was wrong so I was told the transfer would not go through and I had to call Verizon back again.

So, I did. Of course, I didn't get the same sales representative that I talked to earlier so I had to re-explain what I wanted to do. The new sales person said he needed to let the original sales person know about the problem and that she would need to call me back in five minutes.

I waited an hour and then decided to call the Internet division so I could at least get the DSL speed increase set-up. That was done in less than five minutes so Verizon's Internet side seems to be running just fine.

As of four hours later, with no call back from the telephone division I decided to call them and explain, for a third time, what I wanted to do. This time, the person taking the call had no problem is setting up the long-distance transfer.

I hope, all is now well. I can see the speed increase already and tested it at dslreports.com (one of many places to test transfer speed). Although I'm only averaging a little over 2.0mbs it's still pretty fast. But I guess I'll have to wait until the bills come to check to make sure everything requested was done.

Posted by DanS at 07:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In the most recent local election, Hawaii citizens were asked to vote on four state Constitutional amendments. Even though most people didn't realize it (insert disclaimer here as I am an employee of the Hawaii Judiciary), the amendments were intended to shift power from the Judiciary to the Executive and/or Legislative branches.

As many people will remember from their high school civics class (is that even taught anymore? - ed.), the idea of separate and co-equal branches of government was intended, among other things, to prevent any one or two of the branches from seizing absolute power (with, as the old saying goes, leading to absolute corruption). For as long as the three branches remained roughly in balance, no one could achieve hegemony over the people.

However, the Framers created a mechanism of amending the Constitution to take into account unforeseen situations that would occur in the future. But this mechanism requires, if citizens wish to keep their freedom, that said citizens are vigilant towards any changes that would weaken the protections found within the Constitution.

Recently, the Republican Right-Wing/Neo-cons/Evangelicals have been alleging that the Judiciary is an obstruction to what the people want and that the solution is to force the Judiciary to bow down on its knees to the Executive and Legislative branches. They say the courts have barred Christian prayer from the public schools; banned displays of the Christian 10 Commandments in public buildings, required equal protection among the races, sexes, genders and ages; and beat back the Federal Justice Departments' efforts to find terrorists through draconian searches and seizures of innocent citizens without the protection of judicial review. This, these seriously misguided people say, will not stand.

So the electorate went along with the changes and passed the four amendments, either not knowing or not caring that they had begun a journey down that slippery slope that leads to tyranny. Taking notice of the shift in power is Slate writer David Faige. Faige correctly frames the changes as a weakening of the right to confront and cross-examine witness, the right to due process, and perhaps most importantly, the right to live freely unless a grand jury returns a list of indictments against an accused. Go read the article and be chilled that even in blue states like Hawaii, the Republicans are moving ever towards absolute power. Power they are not afraid to misuse against you. Power that inevitably becomes corrupted absolutely.

Posted by DanS at 07:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 07:33 AM | Permalink

This BBC story says Lycos Europe (no, I don't know why there isn't a US version) has a screen saver that:

endlessly requests data from sites that sell the goods and services mentioned in spam e-mail.

Lycos hopes will it (sic) make the monthly bandwidth bills of spammers soar by keeping their servers running flat out.

The net firm estimates that if enough people sign up and download the tool, spammers could end up paying to send out terabytes of data.

Posted by DanS at 07:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Two weekends ago the city did some road work near our house. The work, which consisted of paving the an intersection about block away, required the temporary closing of the road. So, the workmen setup a five foot high by five foot wide sign saying, "Road Closed." You would think this would be enough for cluefull people to know that, you know, the road was closed and you should take an alternate route.

But no, at least 20 or 30 drivers, over a period of about three hours, drove around the sign. Of course, having driven around the barrier they found the road closed and impassable. But if that wasn't enough, one person, driving a Range Rover complained so loudly about not being able to drive on the road that I could hear her from about 75 feet away.

Clearly, these people have no business driving a two-ton projectile known as a motor vehicle. These kinds of people make me think that we need better licensing procedures. Presently, once you pass the drivers exam, you never again need to prove you know how to drive safely. Maybe making it tougher to keep a driver's license isn't the best solution but I don't know of any better way to keep these people off the road. If not for our safety, then for their's.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 07:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Boston Herald is reporting that the Chief Economist at Morgan Stanley Bank is predicting that the US economy has no better than a one in 10 chance of avoiding an economic Armageddon. By that he means:

America's record trade deficit means the dollar will keep falling. To keep foreigners buying T-bills and prevent a resulting rise in inflation, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will be forced to raise interest rates further and faster than he wants.

The result: U.S. consumers, who are in debt up to their eyeballs, will get pounded...

To finance its current account deficit with the rest of the world, he said, America has to import $2.6 billion in cash. Every working day. That is an amazing 80 percent of the entire world's net savings. Sustainable? Hardly.

Meanwhile, he notes that household debt is at record levels. Twenty years ago the total debt of U.S. households was equal to half the size of the economy. Today the figure is 85 percent.

Nearly half of new mortgage borrowing is at flexible interest rates, leaving borrowers much more vulnerable to rate hikes.

Americans are already spending a record share of disposable income paying their interest bills. And interest rates haven't even risen much yet.

But they argue there may be an alternative scenario...Greenspan might instead deliberately allow the dollar to slump and inflation to rise, whittling away at the value of today's consumer debts in real terms.

In any case, the economy appears boxed into a situation that will result in either much higher interest rates, higher inflation, or possibly both.

Posted by DanS at 07:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

According to this article, U.S. airport security forces are doing full body searches of men and women. This includes hands on searches of womens breasts, genitals, and buttocks. What's next, full body cavity searches? When will this insanity stop?

Posted by DanS at 07:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It won't stop here if the MPAA/RIAA has anything to say. The author of the site says he had to turn in his cell phone, driver's license, and submit to a body search before he could, now wait for it, watch a movie at a theater. Madness! Madness, I say.

What kind of country have we become?

Posted by DanS at 07:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Keeping in mind the sources for vnunet.com story, it says that in the weeks running up to Christmas, expect the percentage of spam emails to hit 90 percent of all email. If that weren't bad enough (if true - ed.), spammers have been working overtime with social engineers to find new ways to get you to click on their emails/links/fake e-card Christmas greetings/phishing attacks.

As they used to say on that old TV show, "Let's be careful out there."

Posted by DanS at 07:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Tomorrow is a national holiday (Thanksgiving) so I will be off. In addition, I will be taking Friday off so there will not be any post until next week Monday.

Have a Great Thanksgiving, Everyone - Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 07:48 AM | Permalink

I've talked about various browsers based on the Internet Explorer engine. One of those was called MyIE2. It had tabbed windows, mouse gestures, and other stuff that should be in IE already (but isn't since MS stopped development awhile back).

I haven't been over to their site for awhile and wouldn't have had it not been for a link in an article on the Mozillazine site that says the MS Director of Windows Product Management uses something called Maxthon. It seems MyIE2 changed its name to Maxthon and has found a following, including the MS Director.

In reading the interview though, I found it interesting that the Director seems to be saying MS doesn't need to update IE because third-party developers are providing the innovations for them and in any case, mainstream end users don't see a need for advanced features like tabbed windows anyway:

[Question:] How does Microsoft feel about third party browsers such as Maxthon and Avant Browser, which integrate much-demanded features with an IE engine underneath. Does Microsoft feel this is pulling users away from IE, or adding more of an IE user base? Isn't there a risk by pushing third-party browsers and making users more comfortable with a non-IE interface?

[Answer:] There you're only look at one dimension, which is the dimension of features. You're saying, "If I can get tabs in Maxthon, well I can go get tabs in Firefox, therefore I am going to switch." But that does away with all of the security stuff that we've just talked about, all those processes, the maturity of IE itself and the IE rendering engine, the compatibility with Internet sites, the compatibility with corporate applications - many of which use custom ActiveX controls that wouldn't run in Firefox in the first place.

Within the enterprise you're probably not going to see enterprises shift over to a tabbed browser on behalf of their users. Individual end users might decide "Hey, I like this feature and I'm going to go for it." But on balance, I don't think you're going to see the mainstream end user jump to tabs or jump to any other more advanced feature in the browser. For those users the browser is the Web site that they visit.[emphasis added]

Posted by DanS at 07:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I posted last week about some Lexmark printer drivers apparently phoning home. This week comes the revelation that at least some Xerox color printers, and perhaps Canon also, encode your printer's serial number on all printed pages. The coding is then used by entities such as the US government to track documents back to particular owners. Such tracking is aided by Xerox in that they (Xerox) voluntarily provides their customer database to government workers. Is this a GoodThing?

Posted by DanS at 07:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Reporter Kevin Sites has become well known recently due to the video he got of a US Marine shooting a man laying in a mosque in Iraq. I have not, until now, commented on this incident because finding the truth in wartime is a very difficult task.

This much I know: it is true, in this war and many others, that combatants have feigned death so as to either evade being killed or to lure his or her enemy closer so a killing blow could be delivered.

It is also true that, to put it plainly, the micro-objective in war is to kill your enemy before he can kill you.

But this objective is constrained by various international agreements that the US is a signatory to. In addition, the US military and federal government have rules and/or laws regarding the conduct of combatants and treatment of the enemy, wounded or not.

If we are to be a nation of laws rather than of men, if we are to behave as civilized people in an uncivilized world, we need to carefully investigate this incident and determine what is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Saying that no investigation should be done, without first knowing the truth of the situation is, to say the least, short sighted and, in the long run, just another nail in the coffin that is our "policy" in Iraq.

For one version of the truth, you can visit Mr. Site's own blog where he states what he says he saw and did here. Yet to be heard is the Marine that fired the shot nor the Iraqi survivor(s) mentioned in the post. But until all sides have been heard, I think it would be premature to comment further.

Posted by DanS at 07:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Speaking of the truth, or in this case, what may be half-truth. The local mayoral election, earlier this month, came down to a difference of a thousand votes in hundreds of thousands cast. Hence, it is a reasonable conjecture that some small changes may have thrown the election one way or another.

One of those small changes was an allegation, on a web site, that the wife of one of the candidates somehow cheated someone out of some money. This incident occurred before she became the wife of said candidate. The allegations came from a civil case filed in a local court.

Or, at least, the allegations came from selected quotes from just one side of the civil case. As anyone who knows anything about court cases, if you listen to just one side you would think this was a compelling, slam dunk of a case. You would, of course, be wrong because if you hear the other side things aren't that simple.

So, about three weeks before election day, this woman writes a "story", based on one side of the case and tries to pass this off as professional journalism (with all the ethics rules and editorial oversight that it implies).

But the writer is not a professional journalist. At least, not since she was fired for unprofessional behavior while employed at a local business weekly newspaper. Indeed, she wrote so many slanted, unprofessional, and obviously unfactual articles against Democrats that the editor, who is a Republican, was forced to fire her. In addition, she failed to disclose that she is the girlfriend of a Republican state senator. A senator that supported the opponent of this candidate by being in a full-page ad in the daily paper. But most importantly, she failed to report the other side of the story contained in the very documents she used to write her story.

In her defense now comes a local conservative Republican radio personality trumpeting how if you want the truth, you should go to her site because "Big Media" won't write any stories about it. Well, actually other media have written stories. But for those that haven't, what they've said is that there isn't a story. That the charges have not been substantiated. Further, and this is the critical part, there is substantial doubt that the allegations are true, based on the evidence in the very case the female writer quotes from.

There has been a lot of crowing, within the blogshpere, about how blogs are the "new journalism" and that the old media don't get the stories that are important. While this may be true, sometimes, people need to remember that just because something is published on a website doesn't mean it is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

People need to remember that there are people out there that will try to weave a web of half-truths that sound plausible in order to fool you and to get you to vote one way or the other. All I can say is that you need to think critically, know the source of the information, use your common sense, and then determine what is the truth.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 07:55 AM | Permalink

For those of you who work in offices and have too much free time on your hands, this link leads to some examples of what you could do to your cubicle mates abode while he or she is away. Insert standard disclaimer here. Do not attempt this at home. Professional driver on a closed course.

Posted by DanS at 08:04 AM | Permalink

Warning! Religion discussion. Come back tomorrow if you are offended.

First, let me say I am a Christian and belong to what some may describe as a conservative Protestant sect. Further, I believe there are some things about God you simply have to accept on faith because there isn't any way to otherwise make a rational decision. The problem, to me then, is determining which situations to accept on faith and which to use rational thought.

That said, I like to think that God gave people a brain to think things through. That He gave people the ability to critically examine questions and come to rational conclusions. Indeed, that one of the ways He reveals the wonders of His creation is through science.

Unfortunately, many people seem to have problems dealing with complexity. That is, if they can't wrap their minds around a problem they automatically fall back to faith. This isn't necessarily a GoodThing.

Mankind came out of the Dark Ages by, among other things, questioning things based solely on faith and examining them using the scientific method. By throughly comparing the evidence to what appears to be reality, we may come to a better understanding of what is truth.

Still, having come this far, we are always dangerously close to reversing course and heading towards our own Dark Age. What we come to think as being normal society is but a thin veneer covering a multitude of irrational fears and very angry people. Get within range of these people and we could see the worst of McCarthyism and the Scopes trial return.

Evidence of this is this recent Gallop pole that says 45 percent of Americans believe God created humans about 10,000 years ago.

While I fully understand that Darwin's theory of evolution is just that, a theory, and while I fully understand polls can be very misleading - the theory of evolution sure seems to explain a lot of what we observe to be reality. In fact, it seems to explain more things than just relying on what I believe to be misguided faith.

And here we come to the crux of the matter - when is it appropriate to use faith and when is it appropriate to use our minds and the scientific method to reveal God's truth?

I can't give you that answer but I fear for all us when people apparently so easily disregard what science has revealed.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 08:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Those of you who are old enough to have used Windows98, lo those many years ago, may remember a utility called 98 Lite. This utility did what Microsoft said couldn't be done. Namely, it split Internet Explorer and a bunch of other embedded programs from the underlying operating system.

There is now a version for Windows XP SP2 (also works with Win2K SP4) called XPLite/2000Lite. This utility can give you back the power to pick just what is installed on your Personal Computer or at least it gives you the choice to install about 120 different Windows components.

Obviously, if you want an operating system that can do a variety of work you might not want to remove very many of those components but at least it's up to you decide. In addition, there may be times that this could act as an aid in troubleshooting problems by systematically removing components until the problem disappears.

If you need such a program, you can give it a free, limited function, test drive and see it it fits your needs. If it does, it'll cost you $40 bucks to download a license for the full monty and $10 more if you want the shiny disk edition. YMMV. Use at your own risk. The door is a jar. Objects are closer then they a pear.

Have a Great Weekend, Everyone - Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 07:20 AM | Permalink

For this week's unfortunate acronym award comes the beta test of Microsoft's Windows Update Service (WUS)(see the story from eWeek here). MS is big on WUS and expects the follow-on to the Software Update Service to ship sometime in mid-year 2005.

MS revealed its WUS at the IT Forum show in Copenhagen where, among other things, Bill Gates did a demo of various new technologies. Gates would like to spread WUS as widely as possible during this beta test to ensure as many programming holes as possible can be filled before shipping.

However, leaks regarding problems with WUS have circulated for some time, especially since its been behind schedule by 12 months. Nonetheless, MS is insisting WUS will mature into a robust solution to the problem of software updates.

Posted by DanS at 08:43 AM | Permalink

The WindowsIT Pro site says Sun will release an Open-Source version of Solaris 10. The software, not available until sometime in January, will be free but will not include any support.

Posted by DanS at 08:41 AM | Permalink

The W3Schools site has a table of browser stats that confirms the slow decline in Internet Explorer usage while at the same time Mozilla usage is rapidly increasing.

It is certainly premature to say that Mozilla will soon rule the roost by deposing IE. But it may be accurate to say we have seen the end of the beginning that could lead to that result.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 08:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The US NASA folks over at the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California successfully tested their third, and last, X43 scramjet yesterday (see the story from NASA here).

The unpilotted research aircraft reached almost 7,000 mph (~11,000 kph) during its 10-second run before gliding back to earth and splashing down into the Pacific. But data received during the brief flight will go a long way towards moving the state-of-the-art forward. It is extremely difficult to reproduce, on the ground, the kind of speed needed to operate scramjets. Hence, this real world test is helpful to gain the information needed to determine how well this type of air-breathing engine performs.

Posted by DanS at 09:21 AM | Permalink

The US Congress is reviewing a bill that would, among other things, make it illegal for you to skip over commercials. In addition, but more importantly, "fair use" would take another hit in BigMedias' attempt to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

For decades, the media conglomerates (i.e., movies and audio) have been saying technology would kill its business. First it was blank cassette tape which, according to the mega-opolies, was a sure sign that people were wantonly and with reckless disregard for the rights of corporations, recording music they had bought leased from said companies. Surely profits would suffer. Surely innocent companies would go out of business because of these pirates stealing their intellectual property. Something must be done!

But the reality is record company profits soared. People bought leased even more music so they could create their own mix of songs to go along with them while driving. Did that stop the watchdogs?

Nope. The next threat, according to the industry, was blank tapes for VCRs and the VCRs themselves. Surely this was proof positive that pirates were out there. What other possible conclusion could a objective person come to regarding VCRs? Surely VCRs were designed to snatch the food out of the drooling mouths of content providers everywhere. Why, VCRs where the evil spawn of Satan himself!

But the reality is movie company profits soared. Record profits were hit year after year. Money cascaded in as more and more people bought rented movies on tape to watch on their VCRs. Did that stop the watchdogs?

Nope. Along came DVDs and their players. Now, surely everyone could see this was the threat that would kill off the Goose that laid the Golden Egg. Anyone would be able to make perfect copies of content provided by movie companies. The sky would wall. Cats would live with dogs. Movie executives would have to get real jobs instead of living in mega-mansions while snorting cocaine out of the belly buttons of their pneumatic secretaries.

But the reality is movie company profits soared yet again as people bought rented DVDs to watch at home.

Comes now the Internet and personal computers. Surely, now anyone with eyes can see that the pirates will this time steal everything! This time the wolf really is at the door. This time we really mean it.

I dunno. While I know many in Congress are owned by the companies Congressman want to work for once they retire, I don't think all is lost. If enough people let their Senators know that they are "mad as hell and won't take it anymore", perhaps something can be done. You decide.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As mentioned earlier, Cingular rolled out the Motorola Razr V3 [Note: the Cingular site doesn't seem to be compatible with Firefox. Using IE got me further along but I still got page display errors. Perhaps this is why, when I typed in my ZIP code, the site said I was located on Kaua'i. Which is not a bad place to be, but I am actually on O'ahu.] yesterday. But not only is it being sold at the ridiculous price of $499, the price is actually discounted by $100 from the even more ridiculous list price of $599!

But wait. There's more. From what I understand, the price is only good until the end of December. If true, what the price will be in January is unclear.

But wait. There's even more. If pricing at Motorola wasn't a bad enough problem, this article from Engadget says there may be problems with quality control in four other Motorola models. With that kind of record, one has to wonder what problems may be lurking in the V3.

High prices and reported low quality. Is it any wonder that Motorola is sliding down towards third place?

Posted by DanS at 07:48 AM | Permalink

Newsday is reporting a putsch by Central Intelligence Agency head Peter Goss. But in this case, the "cleansing" is taking place in the CIA itself. It seems the Bush administration is outraged by the CIA reporting evidence that contradicts what the administration wants to do or believes is reality - especially as it relates to the conflict in Iraq.

Hence, a litmus test is being administered to certain CIA employees to determine if they are "loyal" to President Bush. In other words, the Bush administration will fire anyone who reports the truth. People are not stupid and lessons will be learned. Namely, feed the administration only what it wants to hear [Isn't that how we got into the Iraqi mess in the first place? -ed.]. Unfortunately, the lessons learned may put the US at increased risk because US foreign policies may be at variance with reality.

Evidence that loyalty tests are being administered in other departments may be found in the resignation of US Secretary of State Colin Powell. Powell, long a man who prides himself on making rational decisions based on facts was out of place in an administration based solely on irrational faith. As such, he found himself out-of-step with an administration that did not want to know about truths that were at odds with what the President and others believed.

As the Bush administration gathers to itself other true believers, the President apprently believes it will result in a more coherent and controlled administration. While these goals may be met, the quality of decisions made by this administration will, more likely than not, be found wanting.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 07:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by DanS at 07:48 AM | Permalink

Many thoughtful people are trying to make sense out of present day politics. I wish them well. One view is from Chris Nolan (see his post here). His is a prescription for what he calls Progressive Libertarians.

Conservative's reliance on organization and structure and lines of authority make it out-of-touch. The Republican Party's anti-gay, anti-abortion and anti-immigration rhetoric is also unattractive. But they are equally unimpressed by the high-flying rhetoric of the Left with its conspiracy theories and "us v. them" rich v. poor rhetoric. In a world where the individual works best - and succeeds the most - the class warfare of the Democrats looks backward when taking for large corporations and giving to labor, taking from the wealthy and giving to the poor, worked and worked effectively. The pro-union, patronage politics that has come to characterize the Democratic Party - its version of the corporation, as slow moving as the Republican's - is also deeply disturbing.

The first group to articulate a philosophy - and political philosophy is always rooted in economics - and move past these out-of-date views is the one that will run national politics in this next generation.

I don't know if his neo-utopian view will come to pass [insert standard disclaimer here] but I put it out there for your consideration. My own view is it won't and that we will continue on into our own Dark Ages, led by well meaning, but seriously flawed neo-cons who have faith, but no light.

Posted by DanS at 07:27 AM | Permalink

Speaking of Dark Ages, this ZDNet article says Lexmark printer software includes spyware that phones home when you use their printers. I don't know if it does but if so, you may want to remove their software, if you can.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 07:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sorry, no post today. I'm on vacation and will be back on Monday.

Have a Great Weekend, Everyone - Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 08:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Internet rumor is that the Motorola Razr V3 (requires Flash to view the site) will apparently go on sale in the US through Cingular this coming Monday. Unfortunately, rather than have a price similar to the UK, where the V3 is already available for no cost with a new subscription , Cingular will price it at about $500USD with a two year minimum contract.

Sigh. I feared Cingular might do something like that. Although, I suppose, much of the blame should be pointed towards Motorola for having variable list prices based on what they think they can extort the market will bear.

But how does this build good will? How does this build the trust required to be willing to purchase a product? It appears Motorola isn't concerned that Samsung is eating its way towards second place (Nokia is number one and Moto number 2 according to this TheRegister article here) and will probably overtake them sometime early next year by selling exceptional phones at reasonable prices.

Motorola has been, for some time, trying to find its way back to the top of the field - a position it held since the beginning of the cell phone revolution. While technically speaking, the new V3 is a positive step in that direction, they may have more than neutralized that advantage by pricing the phone out of reach of 99 percent of the people Motorola hopes to sell to.

One can only hope that Motorola, and Cingular, see the competitive advantage to dropping the price, Real Soon Now. Otherwise, they will have wasted this opportunity and Motorola will continue the long, not so slow slide into oblivion.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 08:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So Firefox 1.0 has been released (get the US release here. NB, link goes directly to the file so don't click on it unless you want the download to begin). As you might expect, the thundering herds are hitting their site but if you can get in, the download is about 4.8MB and took just a few seconds to come down (YMMV, I'm using a broadband connection).

Posted by DanS at 08:03 AM | Permalink

Some people really love widgets. This past weekend I was in line at the checkout stand of our local hardware store behind a gentleman that had a basket full of little plastic bags holding all sorts of nuts, bolts, screws, and other assorted fasteners. I have no idea what he planned to do with the stuff but he sure had a lot of them.

For those of you who like to have your computer screens papered over with neat widgets, you may want to check out the Konfabulator. While, I think, this started out as a Mac only program it has since spawned a Windows 2000/XP version so now everyone can have widgets showing the temperature and time of every city across the globe...

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 08:02 AM | Permalink

If you think electronic voting, without a paper trail, is safe, secure, and reliable, read this article which says over 4,000 voters in North Carolina had their votes go literally into the ether and not get counted.

Then there is this CNN article that says a Columbus, Ohio precinct electronically registered 4,258 votes for President Bush. The problem is only 638 people voted in that precinct.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 07:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Firefox 1.0RC2 is out. As noted earlier, you may want to wait until the Gold code is released (optimistically still scheduled for 9 November). In addition, Thunderbird 0.9 is also out.

Posted by DanS at 08:28 AM | Permalink

My post yesterday got some push back comments on what is truth. While I agree that what is truth is a many sided jewel that must be examined within its context, that is not to say all we can ever do is sit in circles contemplating our navels and discussing the meaning of truth. If that's what we did we would never progress. The reality is we make determinations on what is truth all the time. How we reach our conclusions may differ, but determining the truth is a common thing to do.

Before I get any further, let's briefly review some of the basics. First, my definition of truth. Truth is an accurate description of reality.

Second, why is it important to find the truth? At the bottom line, get the description wrong and you may die. Hence, finding the truth is critical to our longevity.

Third, once the truth is determined, I believe it is universal. That is, it is the same for everyone, whether they believe the truth or not. Whether they are White, Black, Brown or Yellow. Republican or Democrat. The truth is the truth.

Fourth, my discussion will not end the debate on what is truth. That debate has raged for centuries and will probably do so for more to come. But I hope you can understand where I am coming from, even if you don't agree with me.

That said, to determine truth, people have used various tools. Some look to the great philosophers. Others look to religion. Others look to Nature to reveal her truths.

Science itself grew out of a need to create a tool to better determine the truth. Rather than sitting on the steps of the Parthenon discussing truth, people decided to create theories and then to test them (see the debate between inductive versus deductive logic). Does the Earth circle the Sun or is it the opposite? Is disease caused by spirits or bacteria?

Another tool for determine truth is the courts. Witnesses testify that what they say is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. What is decided may or may not be based on reality but we nonetheless must make the determination. We cannot do otherwise. Life itself would become a confused babel of conflicting stories if we didn't.

So what was I talking about yesterday? Let me explain what I mean by giving you a recent example. If people say they are concerned with traditional marriage and family values, do these people then do everything they can to enable everyone to have a decent place to live, food to eat, health care, and a good school to send their children to? Do these same people who so revere marriage also then want to make divorce illegal? That is, if marriage is something sanctified by God, who are they to thwart His will with a civil court proceeding to dissolve that marriage?

In conclusion, while finding the truth may be a slippery endeavor, not everyone has problems determining the truth. Our founding fathers knew what the truth was. In July of 1776 they wrote: "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 Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..."

Truth that was self-evident. In other words, it was so obvious that only those who refused to acknowledge the truth could deny it.

We can, and must decide what is truth, test whether we are right, and move on. Thus, one of the paradoxes of life is that while we may never know the truth, we have to make assumptions as to what that is, determine if it conforms with reality, and then move on. The alternative is to have philosophical discussions that provide much heat, but no light and, more importantly, will surely lead to our destruction.

Have a Great Weekend, Everyone - Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 08:27 AM | Permalink

A state of Virginia jury convicted two people of spamming. The recommended sentence? Nine YEARS in jail. I don't know if the recommendation will be used and if so, will it stand up during appeals. But still, it sends a message...

Read the story here.

Posted by DanS at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Windows operating system is a tool. Like any other tool, there may be times that it is appropriate for the job. Hence, to say it has no use is nonsense in light of the millions of people who use it and are quite happy to continue to do so. Screaming that Linux is the One True Way only helps them dig in their heels.

Conversely, I think Microsoft (MS) has learned a lot about politics and how things work as a result of the lawsuits brought by the states and the recent republican strategy in the Presidential race. However, none of it is good.

It seems MS's Steve Ballmer sent out a memo to customers last week that implies Windows has economic and security advantages over open-source software and warned that Linux users are liable for intellectual property lawsuits. This is part of Microsoft's Get the Facts Web site effort to spin the truth. Essentially, it attacks Linux on its strengths by lying. Hmmm, sounds vaguely familiar.

To its credit, Novell countered with their own website called Unbending the Truth. Unfortunately, Novell may be spinning reality in their own way rather than using the sharp tip of truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth as a sword to clear away Microsoft's FUD.

Given the recent elections, I think the only response to a lie that works is to tell the truth as simply and clearly as possible. Don't use an essay when a paragraph will do. Don't use a paragraph when one sentence will do. And don't use a sentence when one word will do. But in all cases, do not spin. Do not shade.

Keep it simple and tell only the truth. It's the American Way.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 08:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sometimes, well-intentioned policies make it impossible to do the things we need to do. We, like millions of other people, have to login in to our network to get access to the resources there (mostly the file servers and e-mail). In order to maintain security, our Information Technology office has set a policy of requiring password changes every so often (sorry about being a little vague here but I don't want to give out information that could be used to hack our network).

Well, this morning, when I logged in, I got the screen saying I need to change my password. OK, no problem, I've been doing that for at least 10 years so I know how to do this. So I fill in the change password form and press enter. But nothing happens. I try clicking on the enter button but I can't get the mouse pointer to display on the change password screen. It's as if the window does not exist. But it does because I can slide the mouse pointer behind the screen (where the mouse pointer disappears from view) and out the other side. But I can't get the focus to be on the password change screen. Even using alt-tab doesn't do any good.

So there was nothing I could think of other than rebooting. But when I tried to login I got hit by another policy decision. I can't log in more than once and somehow, the network software somehow believes that I logged in. Even though my password has not changed.

I can't log in because I'm already logged in and I can't change my password because I can't get logged in. You know, sometimes it's really hard to like using computers...

Sigh. Fortunately, I can still access my PC (but not the network) so I can do some work.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 07:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

There are differences in the types of rewards employees receive based on whether you work in the public or private sectors. In the private sector, if you do well, you may get a financial bonus, extra days off, stocks, or some other financial renumeration.

However, in the public sector, at least here anyway, the rewards are less tangible but no less appreciated. Most public employees, by law or tradition, don't get financial rewards. In fact, most public sector worker base salaries are substantially less than their private sector counterparts to begin with. We also pay substantial parts (40 percent) of our medical, dental, and optical plans.

So what do we get? Last Friday, I attended our Incentive and Service Awards ceremony. I was invited to come and celebrate my 20 years of public service and decided to do so. Along with the recognition, you get a pen and pencil set, a certificate, and picture with the Chief Justice and Administrative Director.

These small items are appreciated. But what makes the ceremony so moving and significant to those who attend is the recognition that these celebrants are more than just employees, they are public servants.

Few people in the private sector will ever understand the depth of commitment to serving the public that these people have. Yes, I know, just about everyone has or has heard of horror stories when dealing with public servants. But truth be told, those incidents are in the minority. In fact, from my own experience, I've had more problems with people in the private sector providing shoddy or nonexistent service than in the public sector (see my problems with the various private shipping services versus the exemplary service I get at the US post office). I also know that independent survey after independent survey of the public who have actually received services confirms the high level of service.

But back to the ceremony. Part of the ceremony is the recognition of individuals who have, over many years, excelled. These employees receive special recognition. In listening to why they were chosen, I am struck by the level of commitment and perseverance embodied in their stories.

These individuals struggle everyday working within a system designed to be inefficient (Why do you think we have three branches of government? If you want efficiency, check out any dictatorship). But the recognition is not for their struggle, laudatory as that is, rather it's for their reaching nearly impossible goals within the financial constraints forced upon them.

Many of the incentive awardees noted the countless hours of uncompensated overtime they put in. One recipient, heading up an information technology project, spends 80 hours per week working to make it succeed. The toll on her health and family is evident (I hadn't seen her for about a year and almost didn't recognize her due the changes reflected in her face) but she perseveres.

Another awardee, overcome with emotion from the recognition she received could barely speak. Tears flowed down her face as she haltingly, and with quiet dignity, tried to express her thankfulness for the support she received from her co-workers, supervisors, friends, and family and what an honor it was to serve others.

I know much of what I've said will probably fall on deaf ears. There are those out there that will judge all people by one or two bad experiences. Others, who haven't even had any contact with a public servant will adhere to a biased caricature of what we do and who we are. But you should thank God that there are people like these women working to serve the public. Because if they, and all of the other public servants, decided it wasn't worthwhile, things would truly go to hell in a hand basket.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 07:18 AM | Permalink