Tag: NuAngel’s Notes

I wish I were on TWiT.tv. A lot. I watch it, literally daily, and it both educates and entertains me. The TWiT network started, essentially, as a dream back in the days back of TechTV. When it morphed in to G4 TV and became more about entertainment than the real tech, several members of the old guard, the first tech evangelists, the true technology journalists all banded together and began This Week in Tech, TWiT. Several years after it began, it has taken off as the premiere network for all types of technology, including broadcast radio technology, daily tech news headlines, a question and answer program called The Tech Guy, ham radio, Google Specific, Android Specific, MacBreak weekly, Windows Weekly, gaming headlines and several other daily live webcasts on live.twit.tv, which can are recorded and released as podcasts for people who can’t join live. For those who can join live, there’s also a chat room. The community is busy, and a very fun group of people.

I used to listen to several weekly podcasts… including KOXM, TalkRadar, One Of Swords, Major Nelson’s podcast, and so many more. I always thought about doing my own podcast. Just a weekly thing, talking about whatever came to mind – or whatever my blog was about at that time. I even thought it would be neat to do something like A Life Well Wasted – produced like a radio broadcast news article. But I’ve never so much as bought a microphone. I’m afraid I won’t be interesting, won’t have the time to podcast, or won’t have anybody to podcast with (one man pod casts get pretty boring). So I’ve never gone ahead and recorded anything, other then a few clips for other shows (very few of them made it to air). But a man can still dream, and while dreaming, he can be educated and engaged by something as fascinating, and hopefully long-lasting & succesful as the TWiT Network.

When you first begin booting from the CD, an abstract version of the Windows 7 “BETA” (betta) fish image appears. You know you’re in for a treat. This is the Windows 8 “Consumer Preview” – or what most are calling “public beta.” You can download it from Microsoft, in an easy to use ISO format here:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/iso

On this page you can choose your language, decide if you need 32 or 64-bit, and get the product key which will be required to install.

The installation is extremely straight forward and simple. At one point I was asked to login with my “Microsoft account.” This, for those who may not be certain, is any existing Windows Live ID. If you’re on Xbox Live, you’ve got a LiveID. When it asked for my phone number, I clicked next without providing one. This is a password recovery feature also provided on account.live.com.

I installed to a VMWare image, so I could avoid any potential data loss or the need to move my data around at all. So in my virtualized Windows 8 environment, I immediately went for Xbox Live. I have no intentions of doing performance testing as my desktop is actually a few years old and doesn’t support hardware based virtualization. In other words it’s functional, but not very fast. Although I had a few programs close out on me when trying to get them to load, I’ve been able to play a little bit of Cut the Rope so far. Yes, it’s still fun, even with a mouse.

I’ll have more to say tomorrow, but if you want to check it out, now’s the time! Get downloading and enjoy!

Thursdays are the day of the week when I post some personal thought, but this week I’m thinking about passwords, so this will be a bonus “From the Help Desk” tip!

Password policies get out of hand, sometimes. I understand the need to be secure, but I will never understand why we IT nerds make it so difficult for the rest of you. We require your password to be at least 8 characters long. It must meet 3 of the 4 following requirements: 1 (or more) upper case letter, 1 (or more) lower case letter, 1 (or more) special character, and 1 (or more) number. Oh, and it can’t be similar to any of your 25 previously used passwords. It can’t have more than 2 sequential letters or numbers (sorry, ghillieSuit123, you didn’t make the cut!), and if it includes an identifiable portion of your first or last name, it will be rejected. We also lock you out after multiple log-in attempts (to prevent others from “cracking” or “brute forcing” your password by going throug the dictionary one word at a time).

Did you follow all of that? Me neither, and I’m one of those people responsible for making it all up. And that’s my problem with passwords. We make them so insanely complex that everyone needs to write down their passwords. Defeating the entire purpose of the password. Now, it’s true, people think mostly that a slip of paper in a desk drawer isn’t a huge security risk in this day and age. Computer crimes, password theft, etc… it all happens in the ether when groups hack large databases and steal hundreds of thousands of passwords at a time (as was the case very recently at my regional power company). But if you think that nobody would ever try to break in and steal your computer, you’re sadly mistaken. And some may go far enough to look for the passwords to go along with them. These things do still happen.

Or, more likely, it could still just be as simple as a co-worker taking the information and impersonating you on the network and getting you fired. Anything can happen. We want your password to be secure, but I’m on your side: I hate that we make you change them so frequently. If we could trust you to just not give your password out, then you would have one password, and not have to write it down. It’s frustrating. But unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the “password policy” is going to change any time soon.

So here’s what you can do about it. There are some simple services that will help you adhere to password policies in effect where you work. One will help you determine if your password is strong (or generate a strong password for you to use). That site is at HowStrongIsMyPassword.com. A more fun website to see if you’re really safe is HowSecureIsMyPassword.net. This website really entertains me. You can put in your real password and see how long it’s expected that a modern computer would take to crack your password. My “work” password, according to the website, would take 102 million years to “crack” if a hacker were to try some sequential combination of characters (example: a? ab? abc? a-z? ba? bb? bc? and so on, until all possible combinations of letters and numbers, symbols, and numbers are exhausted). While it’s an impressive number, it’s all for naught if somebody can just look on my desk and find my password on a post-it on my monitor.

So just do your part to make your password fun. Most systems, like the computer in your typical office, will gladly accept characters such as spaces and even “!” exlamation marks. I encourage you to write a sentence with your password. Try it! It’s easier to remember, and harder to guess – even if someone knows you. For example, according to HowSecureIsMyPassword.net, it would take 62 sextillion years to crack your password if you made it something as simple to remember as “This is my password!” Another simple password to remember could be “I listened to 45’s growing up!” – not an easy thing to guess, and to crack, it could take 24 duodecillion years! So go on, try it!

I would like to thank DarkMethod45 for sharing “How Secure…” link with me, and inspiring part of this article.

You’re doing it wrong.  This has been an internet meme for a while, and applies directly to the problem with paid apps, in particular, those in the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace.  I’m hoping they don’t continue down this exact path when Windows 8 launches with its embedded app store.

The problem isn’t that the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace has a larger ratio of “paid apps” to “free apps” than iTunes or the Android Market – the problems is what those apps are.  I don’t mind paying for apps, good apps in particular.  Use a pro version instead of a lite version, pay for the developer’s time.  Just imagine if they developed that app just for you, would you only feel compelled to give them a $1.99?  No!  It’s worth way more than that! You’re the one getting the bargain, so why not pay?  Particularly, when the app is “worth it.”

What makes an App “worth it” is subjective.  Very subjective.  But I can tell you one of the things that, I feel, is not worth it, which is what I’m seeing a lot of in Windows Phone 7.  RSS Feeds.  If I want news from one of my favorite websites, I can go to that website and read it all day long.  As we all know, the overwhelming majority of sites on the internet are not behind pay walls.  This is the reality for content producers, and they’ve been struggling with ways to make money ever since.  With the new ecosystem of Windows Phone 7, came the chance to lay down the corrective law and start turning a profit for the hard work developing apps. But the problem isn’t going to be solved by charging a dollar for your app, which has the same content as your website.

True, not every website is optimized for mobile browsing, and an app would be nice.  But let’s be frank, why would you spend a dollar to read something you have been and will continue to read for free?  There needs to be a proven value in your application, that goes above and beyond.  Exclusive articles are hard to sell, people get touchy and will leave your website because they think you’re holding out on them – even though they’re not paying a dime.  Still, perhaps the best solution might be offering some form of exclusive benefit, like industry interviews with people in your field, things that are going above and beyond that typical news articles.  If you can get those interviews.

I don’t have the perfect solution, but I do have good news.  From what I’ve seen, again, in particular on the WP7 Marketplace, it looks like a lot of the people trying to charge for what is little more than an RSS feed, are just people trying to make a buck off of others’ hard work.  The developer is usually not affiliated with the actual website at all, and just popped and RSS feed reading app together with the RSS feed of a popular website, and is trying to pass it off as an app.  I imagine many people are not getting suckered and I hope few are being sold, especially in cases like this.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see developers actually concentrate on making better decisions when they do decide to put their content on a mobile platform.  Ad-Supported apps don’t bother me a bit, but when I do pay for an app, I expect at least something out of it, more than just saving me the time of typing a URL – and the good news is, I think the people managing their own brands and websites know that.

I think most people get that I’m a Microsoft Fan-Boy. A self-admitted Windows lover, Xbox lover, Windows Mobile addict, Microsoft product junkie. That’s why I don’t like being critical of Microsoft, but they just keep missing the point.

Android, and specifically even Motorola Droid commercials, often advertise how Product X is “just one of thousands of apps” available on the Droid. They plug the product, tell you what it does, all kinds of great things – and this is putting money in someone else’s pocket (though I’m sure some sort of scheme was worked out to get a product promoted).

Meanwhile, Microsoft gives all the glorty to “the cloud” – without ever telling you what it is, how it works, or how to actually use it.

Now, I know the concept of the cloud is still a bit abstract for many home PC users, but when Microsoft shows off some great video conferencing software, it sure would be nice if I knew the name of it so that I could start video conferencing with my parents (note: I, frankly, still have no idea what cloud-product is being featured in this ad – can Live Messenger share a video while 2 people video chat?). I just think that the ads should at least feature the name of the Windows application that actually lets you do these things. It’s out there, it’s self promotional, it’s easy. Why is it so hard for Microsoft advertising partners to figure out?

Are you jealous of all of your friends with their fancy Android phones, while you’re stuck with Windows Mobile? Do you wish you could sync your calendar and contacts to gmail just like them? Do you wish there were an easier way to import your contacts from Windows Mobile to Gmail so that when you buy an Android phone you can have it automatically download your contacts? You’re in luck.

For whatever reason, Google Sync seems to be one of the best kept secrets on Windows Mobile. After a download-free, quick, and painless setup, your Windows Mobile phone is syncing contacts, emails, texts, tasks, and calendar events like there’s no tomorrow. You can practically ditch Microsoft MyPhone* if you want. Details about Google Sync can be found on it’s website, http://www.google.com/mobile/sync/ – visit the page for easy instructions on setting the service up for multiple devices. Keep in mind, setting up for Windows Mobile is very easy!

Hey Google! Stop peeking at my data!

Back in May, the story broke that Google had… let’s say “accidentally” captured data from home and business wifi networks. As the “street view” camera cars drove around and mapped a few things, Google admitted they ‘may’ have captured some data from wifi networks in the area. Google had originally said that only data from unencrypted networks and hot spots were captured, and that, according to PC Magazine: “A Google spokesperson said the Street View cars have been collecting the information since 2006 in more than 30 countries… [Google’s Alan Eustace said] ‘As soon as we became aware of this problem, we grounded our Street View cars and segregated the data on our network, which we then disconnected to make it inaccessible.’”

Many, many people have said over and over that a computer can only do what it’s been told to do, and that “mistakes” of this nature don’t happen – and certainly would’ve been noticed more than 4 years ago. If you capture data from wireless networks, you’re going to see a large amount of data – much more than the standard photo data. Someone had to have noticed this. But, fine, whatever. Let’s all accept that Google made a mistake. No harm, no foul, right? So we thought.

Google recently admitted that they may have captured more than just ‘bits and pieces of data’ but entire emails, personally identifiable email address, and even passwords. It’s not the “admission” of this that’s bothering me, it’s the fact that GOOGLE IS STILL ANALYZING THE DATA THEY CLAIMED THEY HAD ACCIDENTALLY CAPTURED! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Stop it! Stop looking at it! Delete it! Demagnetize then shred the hard drives! Lose the data, my data, anybody’s data – four years and 30 countries with of data!

The fact that people are reporting on this, and overlooking the fact that Google is clearly harvesting this data like any other search data that people come to their website and give them or agree to the Terms of Service in their GMail account is absurd! More journalism and technology outlets need to condemn Google’s actions, not just report on them. It is unacceptable that Google is treating this data like anything else in their possession when it was obtained, if not illegally, certainly questionably. Why aren’t more people reporting on that side of the story? I can only assume nobody wants to anger the big machine – but I hope that someone notices what I’ve noticed, and takes Google to task for it.

So in the last 24 hours, we got an announcement about how the HP Slate is finally considered “real” – and that it’s going to cost almost eight hundred bucks. We also recently heard that Samsung’s new Galaxy Tab will be sold at the $600 price mark.

It’s a fundamental fact of hardware sales that you need to be willing to lose some money to get your product “out there.” The problem is companies like HP and Samsung can’t afford to do that. It’s not that they don’t have money in the bank to take a few quarters of losses; the problem is if they do lose money, they have no way to make it back.

In 2008, Sony admitted losing $130 on every PlayStation 3 console sold – and analysts thought it could be much more than that. Even earlier this year, we learned that Sony was still losing $18 for every PS3 sold. It was estimated by BusinessWeek that Microsoft was losing in the neighborhood of $125 on every Xbox & Xbox 360 sold. We have no idea how much the iPad costs to make, and how much money Apple is losing by selling their lowest end model at $500.

Some of you are thinking I’m crazy, wondering why on earth anybody would sell a product they’re going to lose money on. Because they can make it back with services they bundle. When Microsoft launched the original Xbox, it was more of a marketing ploy to lose money – and hope to make the money back by selling games and software licenses. With the PS3 and Xbox 360, they have great money making services like the PlayStation network and Xbox Live to make them money hand over fist. Even the Apple iPad has the App Store.

But what about Slate, Galaxy Tab, and all of the others trying to get in to the market? They will fail. You can’t take a loss when you sell a product like those, because you’re going to be using Google’s “Android Market.” That money goes to Google. If you make a Tablet running Windows 7, you can kiss all hope of making money through software sales goodbye. So if you can’t subsidize the cost of your tablet with anticipated software sales, you can’t price it low enough to compete with the iPad. If you can’t be priced to compete, you can’t expect to succeed.

It is, unfortunately, all too straight forward. This market will continue to be dominated by Apple until Google or Microsoft decides to get in to the hardware game and make the kind of decisions that can only be made if you have another revenue source.

Microsoft is touting Windows Phone 7 as the device that will get you “in, and out, and back to life.” They intend to do this using “tiles” from the main screen of the phone.

Microsoft admits that they are not going to do this instead of downloadable apps like the iPhone or Android phones. However, I find it fascinating at a time when Android is trying to dis-integrate programs from the core operating system. Google has found that having things like “Google Maps” as part of the phone from the get-go, makes it harder to update it independently later. The plan for Google seems to be taking things like Google Maps easier to download and update from the Android Market.

This seems like another case of Microsoft, potentially, being “late to the party.” This is everyone’s biggest fear for what, on many other levels, sounds like an excellent platform. Microsoft is always just a few steps behind, and now that Google has seen troubles with deep integration, and is backing away from it with Gingerbread, Microsoft is walking right down the path that Google just abandoned. While it seems as though everyone who has had hands-on time with Windows Phone 7 devices has been impressed with it, if it does not get the updates people are hoping for, it might just fail. And what could stop it from getting the updates? If Microsoft is making it harder to update by integrating too many things into the main part of the Operating System. Could these handy “tiles” come back to bite them?

While I don’t know if this level of integration is good or bad from a technical stand point, I am excited for Windows Phone 7 and can’t wait to see if it people take to it.

The grand idea of these tiles is so that you can quickly glance at your phone and do what you need to do, without waiting for apps to load and waiting for slow programs, or having to spend so much time flipping between apps. Microsoft demonstrates this in a recent marketing video for Windows Phone 7.

While listening to This Week in Google 58, the table talked about how many billions of minutes have been “wasted” on things like Farmville and other casual games.

The Panel of guests talking on Episode 58 all wished that people would spend less time managing their virtual farms and contributing to something like Wikipedia. My question is, why haven’t we combined the two?

Maybe not wikipedia, but Decentralized Computing programs have simply missed the boat when it comes to getting extra CPU cycles thrown their way. Why should I go out and install, for example, the Folding@home client, when they could have their code inserted into Facebook games and take every few cycles here and there. Then, while I save a baby dolphin on my Happy Island, I could be doing micro-sized work units for things like Folding, Grid.org, SETI@home, BOINC, or whatever is deemed worthy of my computing cycles.

At first, these could be determined by the game designers – later this could be decided by we, the casual gamers – give us the option to choose which program we’re donating our cycles to!

My biggest fear when it comes to this? That the distributed computing folks try to design their own games and get people interested. Don’t! You simply don’t have the magic. I wouldn’t even propose contracting a company to try and design new games that utilize your code in the back-end. What needs to be done is that these “social game” developers need to think of it as their “social responsibility” to work with these distributed computing firms to allow us to give our computing cycles to worthy projects. Meanwhile, all you are doing is what you’re already doing: playing Mafia Wars, Farmville, Happy Island – all the while virtually compounding drugs to combat Cancer, AIDS, or perhaps searching radio frequencies to find intelligent life in other galaxies. Whatever your desired project, you should be able to voluntarily help it out, while not having to think about it. Then your 2.2 Billion Minutes of Virtual Farming could be 2.2 Billion minutes of being socially responsible, green, not wasting CPU cycles, all of that good stuff.

A recent random blog was picked up by some major outlets, saying it knew Why Google needs to pull the plug on Chrome OS. The author feels that, if Chrome doesn’t do well when it debuts on Netbooks, it could spell doom for future Distributions of Linux ever standing a chance at replacing Windows.

While I am a huge Windows fan, I can see obvious benefits to letting Google ship an operating system on a laptop. As it’s been described, Chrome OS would literally be little more than a shell with a web browser out of the box. But therein lies the beauty – it’s nothing at all, it’s the blank slate the Windows users always want. My dislikes of Linux are often how hard it is to get something working, it always relies on me opening a command line to install a package of some kind. Even the easier download services that Ubuntu and others offer don’t seem easy enough. This is where Chrome OS has it’s chance to jump ahead of the curve. An “app store” for the operating system.

After Apple’s hugely successful App Store on the iPhone and iPod Touch, Google knew what they had to do to make Android successful, and quickly became the number 2 smartphone. Why Apple hadn’t put something like this on the Mac itself is beyond me (my largest complaint about the Mac is how little software there is for it, it’s one of the reasons I’ve never bought myself a MacBook). But imagine the Google Chrome OS having 2 icons on the desktop: one that takes you straight to the web, and one that takes you to a simple app-store for Chrome OS. It’s a very straightforward way for you to one-click download and automatically install software for anything from office productivity, to media players, photo editing software, to games. With the ease of a one click install, and with the resources of Google, a large catalog of software at launch, I can see Chrome OS, if done in a form like this, as hugely successful.

However, If Google is really going to rely on their web apps to be their saving grace, it is likely that Chrome OS will be a short lived soiree into the PC Operating System Market for Google. Using Google Docs is nice, but it’s no replacement for having the tools at my disposal. If an installable and local version of Google Docs is available for a one click install, Google will change minds about the complexities of Linux.

All the geeks out there have been reading pro- and anti- iPhone and Flash battles. Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, says Flash drains battery life on the iPod. He also claims that it’s the biggest cause of crashes on Mac computers. InfoWorld has even come up with a Peace Plan to try to settle the conflict. One of the thing’s I’m most curious about: why is Adobe so passionate about this battle?

Flash has always been a large part of their business, it’s true, but Flash has not evolved. Since Adobe bought Macromedia in 2005, I feel development from version to version has been fairly static. True, I’m no Flash developer, maybe there have been giant improvements in how it works on the backend, but from what I can see, it’s very stagnant. In 2007, when Microsoft released the Silverlight platform, I expected to see a big push from Adobe – but it never came. Microsoft and NBC (you know, MSNBC), cornered the Olympics and did some amazing things, showing several cameras at one time, in fluid motion. It’s got fantastic performance and it’s turning my regular internet connection in to something beyond magic!

After all of this, only one question keeps coming back in to my mind: why does Adobe care if Flash is killed off? Adobe is clearly losing ground to Silverlight, and, to agree with Apple and everyone else, HTML5 is coming, and you won’t need Silverlight, or Flash, or shockwave, or anything else to play videos, listen to music, or have great interactive experiences online. Why not work HTML5 into other Macromedia / Adobe web development products, such as Dreamweaver and Fireworks. You have a chance to streamline your business model, and make other products thrive, and you’re complaining that you might lose the foothold that exists in Flash. Adobe already has lots of other businesses cornered, like the Acrobat PDF. They have great software i nthe form of the former Syntrillium property, now Adobe Audition. Why focus on this one tiny platform whose days are clearly numbered?

If Adobe’s Dreamweaver & Fireworks applications are promptly and properly updated, I sincerely don’t feel that they should be too sad to see Flash go. While I understand Flash is one of Adobe’s most identifiable brands, but it has problems. In an economy where companies are downsizing for kicks, if you’re forecasters are expecting the Flash team to have a hard time, why not just kill it off?

I guess this whole post is just repetitive and doesn’t really clear anything up for anyone… but I just had to say: I don’t really care if Apple or Adobe wins the argument. But frankly, too bad, Adobe. Flash is on it’s way out. Now go make Dreamweaver better.

To cut to the chase, just view the American Civil Liberties Union facebook quiz. I will explain it in full below.

You might be wondering why this isn’t on the whutsIT Tech Blog (editor’s note: whutsIT was a distinct techblog I was maintaining around this time, it no longer exists), but I don’t consider this a huge PSA. I think most people who will read this know what’s going on when it comes to Facebook, I just think they don’t care. I may be wrong.

Let me explain. Every time you “accept” a quiz, or “send” a drink, or “farm” a ville or whatever you’re doing on Facebook, your information is shared with people you don’t know.

Wait, what? No, really. You’re not just answering stupid questions, and you’re not just clicking on funny pictures, and you’re not just showing your pictures to me. When you “Facebook Connect” with an application, you’re eseentially giving whoever made the application all of the information that you put on Facebook. When I talk about “whoever made the application” I don’t mean your friend that wrote a quiz to send you, it’s whoever made the ‘quiz’ software that your friend used to build the quiz.

If all of this seems too abstract or complex, the ACLU developed a Facebook Quiz which shows you exactly what these companies know about you when you use their “apps.”

Is it something to be concerned about? Potentially. Many of these companies probably don’t care, many more probably don’t have any way of truly harvesting valuable information about you. But very quickly they can get your email address, your friends email addresses, and all kinds of other information that can be used to identify you, spam your inbox, call your phone, send you junk mail, and who knows what else. All without you ever even typing a word.

whutsIT will soon write about Facebook Phishing – in otherwords, what people can do with the information you actually DO type into those quizzes about your friends, family, what kind of kisser you are, etc… you might be surprised at what I can do with that information.

I recently heard this story about kids who text so much their social skills may be starting to suffer. The example given in this story is a teacher who states that students are more likely to ask questions virtually, via email or perhaps some sort of course management system, rather than come up and ask her in person.

I was as socially awkward as they came, in high school. And some teachers petrified me more than others. I would have loved the ability to avoid them! I do not think that text messaging is the reason students don’t particularly enjoy talking to their teachers.

Still, the majority of that article, as well as many others, focus on how much texting teens are doing. Researchers (empowered with tax dollars, surely), teachers, and parents alike stare at kids confused. Several of my friends, who were once convinced that “if they wanted to talk to me, they’d call me” now send well over a thousand texts every month. So, what happened?

I’m one of the haters. I text as little as possible, but it’s still easily 20-30 texts sent every day, with some days going far higher. I remember the first time I got a text message, not knowing my phone was capable of it, circa 2003. I remember building my mobile plan from ten cents per text, to 100 texts a month, to 300 texts a month, to 500, then finally unlimited. I remember proposing to my friends, before unlimited texting plans were available, a device that would forgo voice communication and be used solely for unlimited texting at $40 a month (I still think it’s a good idea). But why have the youngsters taken to texting? I don’t know why it’s so hard for so many to see.

The answer is simple. Teens and younger generations text because it allows us to multi-task. I can carry on multiple different conversations at one time. We are a multi-tasking society, and studies have shown younger generations are far better at it than our elders. What was thought to be a distraction has proven not to as disastrous as once thought, as younger employees browse the internet at work and still get more done than tenured employees who curmudgeonly hate technology. If I call someone, that takes away from my ability to talk to the plethora of other people I may be talking to at that exact same time. Texting also allows for a response later. This isn’t much different than leaving a voice mail or even an email – but the message is wherever you are and the response can be immediately returned.

It seems painfully obvious to me, but I’m sure we’ll continue to see increased usage of texting. We will also continue to see researchers scratch their heads as to why kids avoid social interaction? But I do not think it’s causing our kids to become e-hermits, I think it is almost entirely motivated by the desire and ability of teens to multi-task and interact with multiple people at one time.