TECH SERVICE: An email address that is “yours”

Saturday, June 9, 2007

FROM AN EMAIL EXCHANGE WITH A FELLOW ALUMNI

>I’ve thought about getting a domain, but when I asked one of my “gurus” about it,
> I discovered there was more to it than I realized, and I haven’t finished off the
> research yet. (Be on the lookout for non-ingineer questions.)

That might have been true a while ago, but now it’s drop dead easy. And, cheap.

I can walk you through either of two methods.

Method Number One is “more professional”, gives you future flexibility (it’s really a web site package), and costs about 50$ a year from my WSP. http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=9113251 (I use a version of that package on steroids — 240$/year — for my consulting sites; Jasper Jottings rides on the coat tails of that.) Note: you can get just the email for ~14$/year, but that limits you to just email.

Method Number Two is more limited as far as future flexibility, depends upon the “generosity” of WordPress and Google (I use that for my blog reinkefaceslife), and costs about $15/year.

Either way, your email is yours and private. Even if you use the web interface for work, it’s accessed by https and as such it is encrypted from anyone’s prying eyes.

As you see below, you can have [his name] dot com.

Hope this helps,
yell if you need more,
fjohn68


TECHNOLOGY: The end of the plug?

Friday, June 8, 2007

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/
technology.html?in_article_id=460602&in_page_id=1965

http://tinyurl.com/3e4c6b

The end of the plug?
Scientists invent wireless device that beams electricity through your home
by DAVID DERBYSHIRE
Last updated at 12:31pm on 8th June 2007

***Begin Quote***

Scientists have sounded the death knell for the plug and power lead.

In a breakthrough that sounds like something out of Star Trek, they have discovered a way of ‘beaming’ power across a room into a light bulb, mobile phone or laptop computer without wires or cables.

In the first successful trial of its kind, the team was able to illuminate a 60-watt light bulb 7ft away.

***End Quote***

It sounds effective but is it efficient? We don’t need to have to build a grazillion new power plants. I can envision power losses in high percentages. If it broadcasts all the time, then what happens when there is no use for it. A lot of questions between here and declaring the end of power cords. Also, who pays? Every guest charges his cell phone at my expense? Sounds like we need some nuclear reactors. Another great technology sidelined by popular ignorance. (France get 2/3 of its electric power from nuclear reactors.) So there is often a lot of resistance to new ideas.

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TECH SERVICE: SKYPE from the ER

Friday, June 8, 2007

Just to call your attention to a neat use of Skype.

Recently Frau was in the ER. Aside from being banned, cell phones weren’t working that well. I assume the building and well as all the electronics around were part of the reason. The fact it was around the corner from an XRAY MRI lab may account for why we were all “glowing”.

Any way, Frau wanted to talk to some relatives.

(Hey what else does one do during the 7 hour wait? If this is far better than socialized medicine, you can keep Hillary care!)

So, I had the idea to Skype. I had my laptop up on the hospital wifi, so I brought up skype, plugged in the headphones, and poof she was talking to relatives.

Everyone reported the calls clear and crisp.

For fun I went up on VWBBie (Verizon Wireless Broad Band) and it worked to. I could have opened my own phone booth.

(Maybe I should have called the ER doc on the phone and asked for them to shake a leg! I could have called the aide. That’d have been a hoot!)

Any way something to keep in mind if you’re stuck for a phone.

# # # # #


TECH BLOG: Try a little something different

Thursday, June 7, 2007

This is a test. It is only a test.

Update: Interesting question. Some one said they got more hits with “timeless content”. Of course, I immediately jumped to try it. I went to the “Options” tab and took out the format of the date stamp. After doing it, I did wonder if I could go back. ?:-) But too late to worry about that. The interesting thing was that the change it had no effect. Do I assume that the template hard codes something to put the date in there. Is it a bug? An undocumented feature? Or, something else? Like a wet ware error on this side of the glass?

Update: Mark@WrdPress says “There is no formula for this. Some themes do hard code the time/date, others do not.”

Hmmm!?!


TECH SERVICE: My WSP is less than impressive in alternatives

Monday, June 4, 2007

When the hospital’s free wifi (beggars can’t be choosers) was blocking FTP, I pinged my WSP for help. A day later (Drop Dead While Waiting), I get this useless “help”. Argh!

*** begin quote ***

From: support @ 1and1
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 12:54 AM
To: reinkefj
Subject: C75194506 – 1&1 Internet Support

Dear Ferdinand Reinke, (Customer ID: 9113251)

Thank you for contacting us.

Unfortunately, FTP is universally using only port 21. We have no alternaltive ports for FTP. You can use the Secure FTP or Secure Shell to upload the files however, this is not supported in your current package. SSH (@port 22) is only available in 1&1 Business Linux and higher packages.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.


Sincerely,
Neil Parilla
Technical Support
1&1 Internet

*** end quote ***

Why bother? I didn’t ask for alternative ports. I ASKED for an alternative PERIOD.

I find their service highly available (I can’t ever remember being “out of service”) and “cheap” (I pay about $250/year and “collected” all my web sites in one place with gobs of space and bandwidth left over).

But they could do a better job answering questions faster and should really have an non-FTP alternative to updating a web site. What happens if this core protocol has a major problem (unlikely, but someone always wins the lotto!) and they have to take down FTP.

Seems like an SPF (Single Point of Failure) to me?

Argh!

# # #

Note: Updating my Alumni News webpage until I got home to my great cable ISP. :-) When everything always works PERFECTLY! :-)

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TECH HARDWARE: Resetting Your Internet Connection

Sunday, June 3, 2007

FROM PCMECHANIC

Resetting Your Internet Connection

***Begin Quote***

If you use either DSL or a Cable Modem and find your Internet connection has unexpectedly gone down, before you dial up tech support, try “resetting” your Internet connection. Here is how:

***End Quote***

My router can be accessed from the client and rebooted. I usually try that before I go crazy.

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TECH SERVICE: Hospital wifi is blocking ftp

Saturday, June 2, 2007

Argh! And, the WSP does appear to support anything other than FTP to update websites. Argh! Argh!


LINKEDIN: Real People, Recruiters, and other denizens of LinkedIn

Saturday, June 2, 2007

FROM AND EMAIL EXCHANGE ON MLPF

On the net, no one knows your a dog!

On LinkedIn, you can’t be sure you’re not linking with a “dog”!

I tend to talk in shorthand and seem to always assume too much.

In my taxonomy of entities you find on LinkedIn, I have some “findings”.

* Real people, like me! Seekers, loafers, helpers, tryers, stumbling blocks, mean well, dumb as rocks. Real people in strange places like New Jersey with all sorts of connections, motivations, and understandings.

* Recruiters — both (head)hunters and (executive)searchers — retained and contingency — with varying degrees of altruism, cooperativeness, and helpfulness.

Now, the newbies and naive think that this is all there is. Unfortunately, that is not all there is out there. I’ve begun to classify all the strange “identities” that I’ve found.

Usually found “close by” a recruiter:

* “hostages” — I think a recruiter creates a profile for some one that they are representing and not permitting any contact except for a fee.

* “strawman” — I think a recruiter creates a mythical person as “bait” with the characteristics they see in “their” candidate. They do this to encourage connections from inside or outside recruiters where they can then “switch” in their candidate.

* “beauty” or “zombie” — I think a recruiter creates an identity, with all the characteristic of someone they wished they represented. When connected, they then try to form up a solid opportunity with they can present to the real person.

* “clones” — I think a recruiter takes a profile that he likes and “replicates” it into his geographic hunting zone for the purpose of finding “buyers” and like minded “sellers”.

I think they do this to advertise candidates they represent, troll for unadvertised opportunities to sell services, find hiring managers? I don’t know. All I know is I think I’ve see it.

Usually found around individuals:

* “ghosts” — An individual creates a profile of a past boss or coworker to get endorsements.

* “pranks” — People set up profiles of people for hahas responding or not as the spirit moves them.

* “psuedos” — I’ve seen no degreed candidates create a “clone” of themselves and add a degree. Then, control access to the “psuedo” and, when approached, they will try to sell into the opportunity.

I’m just an injineer; not a hunter, nor a seeker, and I haven’t stayed in a Holiday Inn Express lately.

I only tumbled to this “barbara streisand” when I tried to reach an old College friend and hit a toll boother. Another time I found my “credentials” on LinkedIn copied to someone in Kansas City. Exactly; my babblings are pretty distinctive, so they do show on searches. So my curiosity was piqued, I pinged, and never heard anything again. I deemed that was a “clone”, designed to flush out a buyer in that area?

This is posted not to give you ideas, but to give you an insight as to what you might find.

Remember, on the net, no one knows your a dog!

# # # # #


TECHNOLOGY: SURFACE glitz and glamour signifying zip

Friday, June 1, 2007

http://www.surface.coml

Surface computing has arrived.
Posted by: “Vincent Wright”
c/o MyLinkedinPowerForum
Thu May 31, 2007 8:30 am (PST)

***Begin Quote***

Surface computing has arrived.
http://www.surface.com

Thanks!
Vincent Wright

***End Quote***

At risk of being a grinch, I don’t see it. Maybe in the yuppie paradises for toys, but not in my life or times.

Has anyone looked at a computer monitor and seen the gunk that collects without a lot of fingers deliberately touching it? And, drinks on a screen … disaster?

Nice video, nice sounds, sell MSFT!

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TECH SOFTWARE:BLOGDESK pushes a new release 600

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

BLOGDESK26.600 was released.