TECHNOLOGY: The cloud isn’t as good as a newspaper

Thursday, December 9, 2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/08/editorial-wikileaks-julian-assange

WikiLeaks: The man who kicked the hornet’s nest

As the disclosures continue, a number of questions about the way the world has changed are becoming more clearly framed

* Editorial
* The Guardian, Wednesday 8 December 2010

*** begin quote ***

The academic Clay Shirky has blogged persuasively this week that the US government should openly use the law against WikiLeaks and others rather than muscle. “Whatever restrictions we eventually end up enacting, we need to keep Wikileaks alive today, while we work through the process democracies always go through to react to change. If it’s OK for a democracy to just decide to run someone off the internet for doing something they wouldn’t prosecute a newspaper for doing, the idea of an internet that further democratizes the public sphere will have taken a mortal blow.” We agree.

*** end quote ***

Several interesting points:

* The inet is not as resilient as expected. It’s supposed to route arond failures, but it’s politcially “controlled”.

* The DNS infrastructure is a single point of failure with respect to that political control.

* With this spur the creation and deployment of a peer to peer bittorrent style dns? Will everyone discard DNS in favor of “phone numbers” like 1.2.3.4? People remember 10 digit phone numbers when they need to.

* Will WIKILEAKS create a new genre of “tabloid journalism”?

* “We, The Sheeple” have gotten a real wake up call into their Gooferment and their politicians. Will it change anything?

 

 

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HARDWARE: Added a POGOPLUG to my garage “datacenter”

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

http://download.pogoplug.com/meet/

*** begin quote ***

The Pogoplug is the perfect accessory to your connected life. Imagine accessing all your files and media at home from any laptop or desktop computer, anywhere in the world, or sharing this content with friends and family without having to upload. There’s even an iPhone application so you can always “phone home” to get your files!

*** end quote ***

It installed quickly and easily.

It works as advertised.

(Doesn’t seem to like when the platform hibernates?)

Have to figure out how to sync various machines on the home network. No immediately apparent.

RECOMMENDED!

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OPERATINGSYSTEM: Cloud-centric OS? The ultimate Thin Client?

Monday, December 6, 2010

http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2010/11/chrome-os-poll.php

Poll: Do You Want to Use Chrome OS?

By Klint Finley / November 30, 2010 11:00 AM

*** begin quote ***

We recently covered five cloud-centric OSes available today. Some of them have been around for years, and can run on old desktop computers. None of them has yet to catch fire in the enterprise or anywhere else – not even Meego, which is sponsored by Intel and Nokia. It seems that people are more excited about Android than Chrome OS.

Is Chrome OS, or one of the alternatives, something YOU would want to use?

*** end quote ***

The question, with “cloud computing”, with “cloud operating systems”, or even with Windoze with it’s Update “Service” that can change the underlying OS without User or Administrator permission, is “change control”.

How do I know that it works and works in a functionally identical manner when I can’t have “change control”?

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SOFTWARE: ECTO, the blog posting software, developed a bug

Saturday, December 4, 2010

ECTO, the blog posting software, developed a bug … …

… … it lost the left column of the main screen that allows you to select the blog you want to post to. Nothing on the support site and I know they take days to reply. So, I tool a change and reinstalled.

Problem solved.

The MACBOOKAIR has to go in again. (Monday?)

# # # # # posted 2010-12-04 19:37

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MACBOOKAIR: So much for Apple’s vaunted service

Saturday, November 27, 2010

201011271138.jpg

Case close. Broken hardware (maybe? probably?) But “closed” from their POV. Not mine.

Now you see why it’s “NOTRECOMMENDED”?

Like DELL, I think they are living of reputation.

# # # # # posted 2010-11-27 11:38

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MACBOOKAIR: Hardware problem. (Remember Apple Computers are on my “Not Recommended” list)

Friday, November 26, 2010

“No output sound devices defined” (No input either.)

Conclusion after ½ on the phone is it’s a hardware problem.

NOO, really!

Argh!

They want me to leave the machine for three days for them to diag, order parts, and repair.

You gotta be kidding me.

Or, I can send it in and this is with the extended warranty.

Argh!

This is for a machine that won’t sync. (They never figured that one out either.)

Hence my time machine is a giant router in disguise. That’s all it is good for.

Argh!

BAck when I first got the machine and wasn’t totally “on” it, the screen took a week to replace.

Cloud computing, with all it’s version control issues, is looking better and better.

Argh!

# # # # # posted 2010-11-26 15:34

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IPAD: Some irritations with the IPAD

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Major irritations with the way applications are handled on the IPAD. Can’t nuke stuff without going to iTunes. Some applications show up in the “settings”, but most do not. (Why is that?) After upgrading the os, I find I have a new piece of “crapware” added in. Said piece of software has a dumb “sequential” password validation against rules that are not known in advance.

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UBUNTU: Playing with U 10.10 on Luggable

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Running it from the “try it option” off a CD I just burned.

(Old hardware is fun! Didn’t remember how loud or how heavy this “notebook” was. There’s a reason I called it “luggable”. Reminds me of the old Kaypro suitcase.)

First try it just hung. Second reboot it just worked.

Had to configure the wifi but it appears to work nicely. (No, refusal to connect as under U8.

Just starting to play.

# # # # # posted 2010-11-24 06:51

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IPAD: the US-focused Daily

Monday, November 22, 2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/nov/21/ipad-newspaper-steve-jobs-rupert-murdoch

iPad ‘newspaper’ created by Steve Jobs and Rupert Murdoch
Apple and News Corp reportedly set to launch joint iPad news publication exclusively via download

*** begin quote ***

Rupert Murdoch, head of the media giant News Corp, and Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, are preparing to unveil a new digital “newspaper” called the Daily at the end of this month, according to reports in the US media.

*** and ***

With no printing or distribution costs, the US-focused Daily will cost 99 cents (62p) a week.

*** end quote ***

Unless it has the UK Sun’s Page 3 ladies, I don’t see the 50$/year working.

The FLIP application already on the IPAD for free has a better shot.

All these “media moguls” have done is to get “We, The Sheeple” to buy the reader and transfer all the costs to us from them.

The IPAD is a “game changer” but it’s not a “credit card machine” like a toll booth collector. When I first saw it, I thought it was nothing more than a heavy device to sell me stuff. That’s the way these guys are thinking of it. It’s really a tool that puts the cloud at your finger tips.

Just rearranging those proverbial deck chairs isn’t going to do it.

Micro-payments will.

If each issue cost a tenth of a penny, then maybe you have a chance. And, charge me when I buy it. Subscriptions, “applications” that have to be downloaded to do nothing more than cost your wealth, and “copy protection” (i.e., Digital RIghts Management) in general is not how dikw (i.e., data, information, knowledge, wisdom) is consumed on the inet.

(Consumed is a bad word. It’s not “eaten”. It is digested, shared, and amplified. Absorbed might be better.)

This idea is a dud! The continued death throws of the old print media.

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IPAD: Upgrade to new OS

Monday, November 22, 2010

Not immediately apparent how to do it.

Takes a while. Half hour? And, a few syncs.

Not apparent at all how to print from ipad.

Not sure if the upgrade does anything at all for anything.

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HARDWARE: MacBookAir is more like Windoze that folks admit

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

An observation: my macbookair is “slowing down”.

I assume this is an example of “crud buildup”. In Windoze, the registry is the source of all crud. Over time, for inexplicable reasons, the hardware just gets tired. Random slowdowns, lockups, crashes all eventually leading to the dreaded “bare metal restore”. Think voluntary suicide. A metal lobotomy. Starting over, … maybe. Who knows what exactly you will lose.

One of my reasons for trying the MacBookAir was the reputation for … stability.

Sorry, but I think I need a bare metal restore here on McBa.

It’s not going to be pretty. What will I lose?

This is one of the reasons I don’t recommend Apple.

Argh!

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IPAD: Apple wants control

Sunday, November 14, 2010

EMAIL WITH Prof P

Re: Jasper Jottings for the IPAD

*** begin quote ***

Right now Jet Tech and I are wrestling with how to get a free book (one that was electronically given to me by the publisher) onto one of the 6 ereaders on my iPad. I like reading on the iPad so I encourage you to go with it.

*** end quote ***

As I understand it. IBOOKS on the IPAD can only take an EPUB or PDF format via ITUNES. You didn’t say what format the ebook was in? Assuming (and we know what that means), that you have ITUNES set to export “books”, it should flow right over. I have to assume that the ebook you’re attempting to move is in another format. Depending upon what format it is, you’ll have to convert it. On the MAC, I like CALIBRE. While the UI is terrible, it does “do” many formats that I haven’t even heard of. Let me know what the format is or send me the file, I’ll attempt to convert it for you. After all I’m sitting in ICU with nothing to do. :-) Argh!

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MACBOOKAIR: OSX 10.6.5 applied

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Update applied. Big one. Reboot required. We’ll see.

Sound still broken.

Assume sharing is still broken.

Argh! Have to consider “bare metal restore”.

# # # # # posted 2010-11-13 09:53

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TECHNOLOGY: Make the patient records and charting available to the patients

Thursday, November 11, 2010

An open letter to ClearPractice:

http://www.clearpractice.com/ehr/contact.cfm

To whom it may concern:

I think you are really on to something here. I’d like to share one idea. (It probably has occurred to you already, but perhaps not.)

Now I realize that you want to be “wholesale”; not “retail”. People, especially as patients can be so messy, and demanding. But, you’re software’s metaphor is the “practice”. You’re going to have to sell into against all sorts of competition. And, doctors are not IT guys (like me). They want to be “practicing” or playing golf. You need to incorporate “patient” and patient-driven demand into you model.

I’d suggest that you make the patient records and charting available to the patients. This would pressure the doctors to at least look at your solution.

Venially, looking at it from my own pov, my wife is very ill. I could use a charting system that would present to doctors the information I capture in an standard organized fashion. I’ve tried Google, Mcrosoft, Caremark, and several others. They all are unusable. Yours is the closest I’ve seen to a mature offering.

Since my wife has been sick, we have watched mystery diagnosis. There are a lot of “sick” people out there. Who are spending huge amounts of time and effort going from doctor to doctor seeking help. That certainly translates to a ton of administrivia and waste.

If you had patients “charting” their own conditions, you could drag the doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, and regulators (kicking and screaming) into the Twenty First Century. Your window of opportunity is limited. Obamacare is going to FORCE change.

I’ll show your setup to any of the docs that will listen. (I give them all free technology consulting.) But, would it be better for me to show them my wife’s chart on my iPad?

If you want an alpha test case, I volunteer. (Despite what I was taught in the military!)

fjohn reinke

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NETWORK: Wifi ain’t as simple as everyone thinks?

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Apple needs to work on its networking software. I know they really want to be an appliance and that Users s don’t need to bother with the details. BUTT (there’s always a big but):

• At RWJUH, the IPAD can not connect to the wifi, but the MACBOOKAIR can.

• At SPUH, the IPAD can connect to the wifi, but the MACBOOKAIR can not.

Also, at SPUH, they have blocked email.

Also, at RWJUH, they have an “entertaining” wifi implementation by HP (which I’d be embarrassed to have my brand associated with) which requires some mickey mouse authentication (that’s what trips up the IPAD) and disconnects randomly. (In the process of which causes both FIREFOX36, GOOGLECHROME, and SAFARI to lose their place in the browser session. (ARGH!)

And, of course, in the ultimate insult to the mundane User, there’s no way to bring these to anyone’s attention. (Argh!)

So why do they bother? An “accomplishment” on someone’s annual appraisal?

Doesn’t inspire confidence in the hospital’s brand.

(My personal test is how clean are the rest rooms — although you can not rest there? Both hospitals seem to do well by that standard.)

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TECHNOLOGY: Voting irregularities are “convenient”?

Monday, November 8, 2010

http://www.fox5vegas.com/news/25511115/detail.html

*** begin quote ***

Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said there is no voter fraud, although the issues do come up because the touch-screens are sensitive. For that reason, a person may not want to have their fingers linger too long on the screen after they make a selection at any time.

*** end quote ***

At best, poor design. At worst, fraud. I don’t understand why a paper ballot isn’t produced from the machine and then “cast”. I think the entrenched politicians and bureaucrats like the system just the way it is “broken”!

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IPAD: Is held hostage by ITUNES and docking

Monday, November 8, 2010

So far the only way I have found to get a book into, or is it onto, the IPAD is via ITUNES. You either have to buy through their store (and boy do they make that convenient) or to import into ITUNES, dock the ipad, and sync it on board. That’s a pain. Amazing that the IPAD and the MACBOOKAIR are both sitting next to each other and they can not communicate by wifi or bluetooth. It’s no wonder that APPLE gets the label “CLOSED” and “DUMB”. Amazing for as good as their hardware is — novel, useful, and thought provoking, their implementations leave a lot to be desired.

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IPAD: Reports to HQ?

Saturday, November 6, 2010

The IPAD today popped up, or perhaps it would be better reported that when the IPAD was syncing ITUNES popped up on McBa and requested permission to report to HQ how the IPAD was being used. For my benefit, of course.

I wonder what it is reporting. User played KLONDIKE. (Who cares?) User updated CARINGBRIDGE. (Now were into medical privacy. HIPPA?) SAFARIed to the following websites. (Now we’re treading close to that privacy line.)

Who knows what gets reported to HQ?

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IPAD: And, a secondary mail account

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Something is odd in how the IPAD handles a secondary mail account. It doesn’t appear to work. Yet this morning, I see the test message in the McBa’s inbox for this account.

Wierd?

IPAD is intended, it appears, to have no “moving parts”, It doesn’t tell you the progress steps for making the connection or what errors, if any, occurs under the covers.

Argh!

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MCBA: MacBookAir (old one) loses sound

Sunday, October 31, 2010

For no apparent reason, there is no sound on the McBa. The volume controls on the keyboard don’t work. And in the system preferences | sound, there are no output devices defined.

The only help I can find online says to run the permission fixer, which I did to no avail.

Argh!

So much for Apple’s reputation of “bulletproof-ness”. I go get this on a Windoze machine.

Time for a bare metal restore?

But I’ll lose all my email archives.

Argh!

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IPAD: Appliance, Thin Client, or something else

Saturday, October 30, 2010

The IPAD is a platform which may or may not be an appliance. It may or may not depend upon the cloud. It may or may not be: a stand alone platform (not so good), a bridge to the cloud (maybe good), a thin Client with cloud integration (not so good based on the Caring Bridge application), a true Client / Server Client platform (haven’t seen that), or something else.

Right now to me it is in the “something else” category .. as long as you have a credit card?

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IPAD: “Office” applications are $30

Friday, October 29, 2010

The IPAD doesn’t come with the iworks or ilife suites. iworks is sold in three a la carte apps for 30$. I’m not sure the equivalent functionality is available. Searching for the apps is cumbersome.

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IPAD: Limited wifi ‘capabiity’

Thursday, October 28, 2010

The IPAD can not connect to the RWJUH wifi.

The RWJUH wifi is ‘available’ to patients and guests. But it has an ‘old style’ mickey mouse interface. It reminds me of the internet cafe system where you buy a User id and password for a few bob. (Sorry last time I bought inet access a la carte was in England. Before that in Biloxi, a life time ago. So bob it is.) And, you use that to authenticate to the network.

The RWJUH wifi splashes you a screen that makes you agree to be good, honor your Mum and Dad (that the English memory bubbling over), and a bunch of other stuff. Then it passes to the traditional uid and password challenge. If you don’t have an id, you can create one for free. It then spaws a small popup saying you’re logged on and “feel free to close this”. But if you do, you’re very quickly back a square one, the agreement page.

The uid and password stays active for awhile or until they wipe the database. That’s happened twice, with no rhyme, reason, or calendar schedule.

The RWJUH wifi “burps” a lot — there are even two type of burps. One, a stoppage where if on the McBa you stop and start you’r airport wifi, you pick up where you are and can keep on going. The other is a five minute, or what seems to be, time out and you start over from the splash.

So apparently, the IPDA can take the splash screen but it won’t allow the pop up after  uid / password. It makes no difference if you have the Safari web browser active or not.

That demonstrates that the IPAD’s wifi is substantively different from the McBa’s. Both machines are on the most current release of software.

Makes you wonder what else is different?

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IPAD: Seems like the primary design principle is to sell the User “stuff”

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

https://www.defectivebydesign.org/macappstore

Fool me once, shame on you… fool me twice, shame on me.
Posted On: Fri, 2010-10-22 13:39 by mattl

*** begin quote ***

Well, it’s official. Apple has now announced it’s bringing the App Store concept to the Mac and it looks like they’ll be restricting apps with FairPlay DRM too for good measure. When we first began talking about the problems with the App Store on the iPhone and iPod Touch, people wanted us to drop it and stop talking about the DRM tricks being pulled by Apple on the grounds that the iPhone wasn’t a general purpose computer (it is, and the iPad is too) but rather an appliance.

*** end quote ***

It really doesn’t do too much out of the box.

It does keep the User captive in the box. I’d call it more of an “appliance” than a computing platform. And, while the User Interface is intuitive, what happens when the User doesn’t “intuit” so well. Where’s the F1 Help button?

My first road block is how to delete an application.

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TECHNOLOGY: eBooks are the “books” of the future

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ja-konrath/ebooks-and-self-publishingb764516.html

eBooks And The Ease Of Self-Publishing J.A. Konrath Author of Jack Daniels thriller series Posted: October 16, 2010 10:29 AM

*** begin quote ***

Putting this project together was an exercise in speed and simplicity. We did the majority of the writing and the marketing within an eight week timeframe, while we were each working on other projects. By releasing it ourselves, we were able to maintain full control over the entire process, set our own price, eliminate DRM (which readers hate) and earn four times the royalty rate we would have through a publisher. By going ebook-only, we could add a bunch of fun supplements for no extra cost, while also releasing it super-fast.

*** end quote ***

As I learned from “CHURCH 10●19●62” http://www.itstartedinchurch.com, it’s easy and cheap to publish a book.

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IPAD: Island Dictatorship or Bridge Appliance

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder? IPAD apps have to come from Apple. Without the cloud, it’s really limited. A grand for the pad, capital cost. 250$/year for the 3G, with a bandwidth cap. So far it’s a very small expensive island. We’ll see if it can bridge anywhere.

It has to have a huge value equation if it’s just an island; a bridge can open new worlds.

Jury’s still out imho.

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