I ordered some new business contact cards since I ran out of the old ones some time ago. They arrived today. Rather than going the standard route or reordering the ones with my mug on the front, I decided to shop over in the UK via the Internet.

I ordered one of Hugh MacLeod's designs from over at gapingvoid. He's made a bunch of his designs available for online ordering at Street Cards. The quality of the cards is great (I ordered the coated cards), and I received them just in time for my trip next week to TechEd EMEA in Barcelona and the Dev Connections conference the following week in Las Vegas.

If there's one thing I've learned working in IT and security management over the past several years, it's what these cards convey. It's been a bot of a motto of mine over the years, so it's appropriate for my business cards, I think (click the link to see the full-sized image).

Thanks to Hugh for making it possible to use his artwork. He makes them available for download and use from his site, and they're great stuff.

Vidoop Labs has a dream:

The dream is to see Identity baked into all browsers. Just imagine opening your web browser and then selecting your Identity Provider (IDP) the way you select your default search provider. The benefits are numerous; never type in a username, never look for a login button/page (you are authenticated when you land on a domain), no phishing/MITM (the browser can do domain and SSL cert validation). You fire up your browser and authenticate (or login) similar to the way you log in to your computer every time you turn it on. The difference is you get to choose your provider and can take control of the data you safeguard, store and share on the Internet.

I could get into that.

Vidoop is a Portland, Oregon company that has built some interesting technology around OpenID. I really like the idea of OpenID, and I have a couple OpenIDs of my own that I use on various sites. But OpenID is not exactly perfect. It's still relatively young, and from the usability standpoint it needs improvement. The identity and authentication requirements of the modern Internet demand some additional features and capabilities that OpenID doesn't deliver (and you can argue that it shouldn't). By combining openID with other technologies (such as Information Cards and other strong-auth offerings) and improving usability for end-users, it could become a widely-adopted, used and trusted standard, or part of a broader one covering strong authentication and identity protection/assertion in a commonly-accepted and deployed package.

Vidoop's Luke Sontag today posted an announcement that the company's newly-formed Vidoop Labs has fired up a community project called IDIB (pronounced "Eye-Dib"), which aims to improve on the OpenID usability model and make it stronger at the same time. They've released a developer preview of IDIB in hopes of involving people and getting your input and feedback.

From the Vidoop announcement:

Over the past few years we’ve seen the adoption of OpenID continue to increase but the work that we’ve done as a community to develop this technology has only just begun. Looking at the landscape of OpenID adoption, its clear that there are several key factors inhibiting adoption, but two that we want to focus on today, namely usability and security in the browser.

It was almost two years ago when the Firefox 3.0 roadmap wasannounced and OpenID was mentioned as a new component to the platform. The Mozilla Firefox team looked to members of the OpenID community to step up and provide guidance on what exactly we imagined identity in the browser looking like, but we failed to mobilize and answer their call.

In light of that missed opportunity, Vidoop Labs has been working hard over the last several weeks to produce a prototype that we intend to use to initiate a wider discussion about OpenID in the browser and what it might look like.

And the current developer preview (which is open-source) is just a beginning. Imagine leveraging Information Cards (such as one would use with Microsoft's CardSpace, or the similar open-source offerings for Mac and Linux) in the cloud, and being able to use OpenID - one logon for all your web sites - confidently, securely and with proper security protection.

The Internet needs a good, strong, reliable, usable and secure standard technology to solve the issues related to user names, passwords, single sign on and identity protection. IDIB looks like a serious and positive attempt to start the journey directly down that path.

UPDATE: Want to be able to track a BlackBerry when it gets lost or stolen with a more robust online system? Check out GadgetTrak, available for GSM-based devices.

Got a Blackberry? Ever worried what you'd do if you lost it? Ever actually had to replace a lost one before? Lost or stolen, it's good to be able to find your handheld, especially if it has important data on it.

A couple years ago I was in Minnesota on a trip and went to play Frisbee^TM Golf with a friend. The course went through the woods and across a couple fields. When we got done, I realized my Blackberry phone was missing. Not good.

We used my friend's cell phone and started calling it. I got lucky that day. It was (thankfully) not on vibrate mode, and we eventually found it deep in the woods (where I had been forced to bushwhack in order to get to my flying disc). The battery was near dead.

Now it appears there's a better way. Berry Locator is a software program that will cause your Blackberry device to scream and flash - even when set on silent mode. When you lose your device (or if you can't find it in the house clutter) you just send it a specially-formed email and it wakes up and does its thing, letting you find it. Even better, if your BB has GPS capabilities, you send an email and it will reply via email with a map showing you the coordinate where the device is located. Plus, you can type text in the body of your email that will be displayed on the screen when it's activated, in case someone else finds (or otherwise has possession of) your Blackberry.

Combine that feature with a password, data encryption and the ability to nuke the device in a worst-case scenario (on a corporate BES system), and you're pretty good to go.

Cool capability, but it only works if you install it ahead of time. There's a free trial version, and when you decide to buy it, it's only five bucks.

• Berry Locator web page
• Direct OTA install download for Blackberry devices

I wrote before about my new HP MediaSmart Home Server, as well as the fact that there is no 64-bit client support available yet. In the end, it seems the Microsoft Vista team had to make a change to the OS to fix an unrelated issue, and the cascading effect of that change was that certain native backup capabilities on 64-bit windows clients (upon which Home Server relied) got broken. All that happened while Home Server was in development.

Well anyhow, looks like the CES show will be the place where HP will announce a soon-available client for 64-bit Vista. I'm happy, because Windows Home Server and the HP MediaSmart hardware and software are pretty darned great stuff, if you ask me.

So - Thank you in advance, HP. The AV software from McAfee (note that Avast! also recently released a AV package for WHS), enhanced media streaming and other features will be nice to take a look at, as well. Good deal!

News and some detail can be found here:

• Anti-Virus Protection, Enhanced Media Streaming and Vista x64 Compatibility Coming to the HP MediaSmart Server Jan 3, 2008 (link to wegotserved.co.uk)
• The Windows Home Server Team Answer Your Questions! October 4, 2007 (link to wegotserved.co.uk, contains background about the development process including the 64-bit client problems they encountered)

The Satellite Alignment Calculator over at UKSatelliteHelp is a great resource that allows you to choose the satellite(s) you need to point your dish at, specify your address, drag a pointer to the spot on your home or building where the dish is, and from that determine the specific angle and elevation you need to use to get a signal.

It also provides a visual representation of the direction to the satellite by drawing a line on the map, so you can see what landmarks fall in the path of the line of sight.

It's a great tool and works great in the United States and elsewhere, not just in the UK. For example, all the Dish Network and DirecTV sats are listed and can be aimed with the information from this service, as well.

(via jkOnTheRun and Hacks)

The Guardian (in the UK) has a writer who points out that there are 164 branches of Starbucks within five miles of Regent and Wigmore Streets in London. That got me to looking around a bit, and I discovered that within 20 miles of where I work, there are no less than 184 Starbucks stores. Luckily I live in the middle of nowhere, so there's nothing near my home. I used to live right across the street from one until move out here. Talk about pricey!

How much should you be worried? Check out the Starbucks store locater for yourself and see what your situation looks like.

Makes me think... Is Starbucks the new Marlboro? I quit smoking a few years ago...

Recently I wrote about my frustrations with the several WRT-54G Linksys routers I have bricked and suffered through over the past few years. I've been on a search for a good replacement. A number of people have recommended sticking with the Linksys hardware, but since I have been through a few of them, I really just wanted to make a change. My friend Omar and a few others suggested the D-link routers, specifically the ones that do QoS traffic shaping for a variety of network services. Those people using the D-Link Platinum series routers spoke so highly of them, I decided to look at them seriously and decide which one would be best for me. Omar uses a model that is billed as a gaming router and he loves it.

While at Costco earlier today, I discovered they were stocking a Pre-N "RangeBooster" wireless router, the D-Link DIR-625 model. I saw that it had the QoS engine that people were heralding, and being a -N model it has some future to it, which is nice. Omar had noted to me that these routers have the ability to be configured and tweaked in fine detail right out of the box (in other words the firmware you get on the thing is incredibly capable and sufficiently detailed for advanced users), and he was certainly right. You can granularly configure almost anything you can think of. The device will even email you when system events occur or when a new firmware upgrade is available, if you want it to. Quite cool.

I have been up and running with it all evening and am very, very happy. My wireless network connection is now rock-solid and the user interface for the router is top-notch. Not once has the network paused, glitched, dropped or otherwise puked on itself, which is quite a change. I could get used to this, heh.

You can check out an online emulator of the DIR-625 router's web interface here (use a blank password). Product information can be found here. The support and firmware page for this model is here.

Setup was quick and easy, simple enough for anyone due to good packaging and a CD-wizard driven installation routine. This router is highly recommended for both home users and geeks.

UPDATE: 1/15/2007 - I have been running the router for about a week now with exactly zero problems. This thing is as solid as a rock and shapes traffic quite well. I should have made this move long ago.

Don't think terrorism isn't ever coming back to our shores. As many as 20 aircraft were to be targeted for bombing in a plot in the UK. Sky News is just now reporting that an "alleged plan involved people boarding flights and detonating explosives on planes over UK and US cities" and that "the threat was imminent." The security level in the UK has been raised to "critical" and flying onto and out of the UK is definitely impacted. "This will mean immediate and severe disruption at all UK airports," officials are saying on TV.

20 people have been arrested in London. British officials are stating that this would have been bigger than 9-11.

I for one am glad there are good people out there thwarting these kinds of plans. Thank God for them.

Technorati : UK, aircraft, critical, terrorism, threat

A coworker sent me a link to a news article today, yet another one about a data breach from - you guessed it - a stolen laptop. This one was an auditor working for Ernst & Young and doing an audit of Hotels.com, and apparently the auditor (and I can't believe this) left it in his or her car and it was broken into and stolen.

So now, thousands of Hotels.com customers' personal data - meaning names, addresses and credit card information of about 243,000 people - is potentially in the hands of someone who could use it improperly. Oh, and by the way, my name is certainly on that list.

Up until today I was frustrated to no end with these events.

Now it's personal. Now I'm angry.

And get this: The theft occurred in February and Ernst & Young didn't notify Hotels.com until the first week of May. What??? And on top of that, customers were not notified until a few days ago. You've got to be kidding me...

This post contains some useful information about data breaches, packaged with a bit of a rant by yours truly about information security - or the serious lack thereof - in US companies and institutions. As a reminder, what I post here is my own opinion and not that of my employer or anyone else. I work in information and cyber security, and I care - a lot - about these issues.

There's a major attitude problem - let's call it a lackadaisical mentality - out there and it's high time someone did something about it. Lazy security means lots of helpless victims, and we're so far behind the 8-ball as a country it's downright scary. There's a fundamental "people problem" at the root of this, and no matter how much technology we throw at it, the analog physical and human components need to be addressed before any of the technical issues can be resolved.

The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse maintains an online chronology of data breaches with descriptions of each event, outlining any known data breaches that have occurred since February, 2005.

All told, as of the time I write this, there are 84,797,096 individuals whose identities are known to have been included in these data breaches. Banks, universities, health care providers, insurance companies, corporations, credit card providers... Lord only knows about the ones that have not been reported. Ugh, it's depressing. It's also ridiculous.

What bothers me the most is how often the term "stolen laptop" shows up in the list. What in the world are people doing with sensitive information stored on computers that can walk out the doors of all of these heavily regulated companies and institutions? It's insane from a security management perspective.

But then again, let's take a look at just how many US banks, universities, health care providers, insurance companies, corporations and credit card providers are certified under some kind of recognized information security management standard. Let's take the big standards - BS 7799-2 and ISO 27001 - for example.

BS 7799-2:2002 (in this case, the "BS" stands for "British Standards") has long been the recognized standard for overall security management, and the new ISO/IEC 27001:2005 international standard is basically BS 7799-2:2002 in an updated form. It's also related to ISO 17799, since we're throwing around fancy names. Ultimately it's all the same stuff, just renamed and reassigned. The 27001 standard represents a systematic approach to managing sensitive information so that it remains secure. It encompasses people, processes and IT systems.  It is used to determine and evaluate a company's security management framework and is internationally recognized as the gold standard for security.

If a company doesn't have a security management framework in place, not only is it unaware of what's happening in it's own walls, it doesn't really know whether or not it knows much of anything. Yeah, that's confusing. What you don't know is what will most likely kill you. Either way, it's negligent in this day and age not to be formally on top of information security, and that involves not just firewalls and technology, but risk assessments, people, processes, and an over-reaching management framework to ensure all the bases are covered.

Did he say "negligent?" Yes, negligent. And I mean it.

It's a lot of work to achieve and maintain the 7799/27001 certification and to hold up to ongoing audits, to be sure (just ask me or my coworkers about it some day, we live it), but it's not rocket science and for gosh sakes, IT'S IMPORTANT. And it's not about the actual certificate, it's about all the things that go into the process of getting the certificate and keeping it.

So, if you had to hazard a guess, how many agencies, institutions and companies in the United States do you think have this important and recognized certification?

Be prepared to be disappointed. Especially when compared to the number of certified organizations in other countries, like say Japan and India and Korea. Or pretty much any other developed country, for that matter. It's really quite pathetic.

Of the 2600+ organizations on the certificate register, there are only seven  (yes, that's "7") companies or organizations in the entire United States certified under ISO 27001, and only 39 have been certified in the US under BS 7799-2 and ISO 27001 combined. Keep in mind, there's overlap on the lists, as a number of companies (like ours) have converted from the British Standard cert to the ISO 27001 model, meaning we've been certified twice.

This table shows how many organizations are certified under either ISO 27001 or BS 7799-2 as of June 5, 2006. The term "organization" can mean any one of several things: companies, portions or divisions of companies, agencies, or various other other entities. I've left off most of the countries that have only one certified organization to save space.

Japan	1602	Brazil	9	Slovenia	2
UK	244	Sweden	8	South Africa	2
India	186	Spain	7	Armenia	1
Taiwan	92	Turkey	7	Bahrain	1
Germany	57	Iceland	6	Chile	1
Italy	42	Greece	5	Egypt	1
USA	39	Kuwait	4	Lebanon	1

And of the US companies, agencies and organizations on that list, only one of them is a bank (and even then it's only the information security team's component of the business). None of them are credit unions. None of them are insurance companies. None of them are health care providers. One of them is a university. A couple are government agencies - and not the same ones that have been in the news lately, that's for sure.

If you think about it (or search for it, for that matter), how often do you hear about information disclosure outside the United States? Sure, it happens, but seemingly not nearly as often. And why is it, I wonder, that in Japan there are so many certifications? ISO 9000 (the gold standard for manufacturing) is huge there, as well. 

The fact of the matter is that overall, companies and institutions in the US don't take security nearly seriously enough.

So - It's time to do something about this. Now, not tomorrow. It's already much too late, so we need to get moving. We're already in triage mode, friends.

What to do? To start, if you do business with any company that handles sensitive individual data, ask them about their security certifications. And don't accept just a SAS-70 certification as covering the bases - it only covers operations of the datacenter and has practically nothing to do with the rest of the company. Also, make sure you know specifically what any issued certifications actually cover - this is called the "scope" of the certification. Is it the entire company (usually it's not so you have to ask), or is it just a department or division? If the company is not formally certified, do they have a security management framework and a standard they follow?

Also, this is formal security management we're talking about. Don't accept lame responses like "we're covered under HIPPA" or "we get audited for Sarbanes-Oxley so that's all covered..." Sorry, that doesn't come close to cutting it. Neither of those auditing standards require a company to have a security management system in place, and neither come close to covering what's needed to ensure proper security standards are met outside of their narrowly focused scopes.

Get educated. Find out what needs to change. Demand change. Question systems that put the secrets in the hands of people who don't have a personal stake in the game. Do business wherever possible only with companies that are cognizant enough of security to formalize their program on a standard framework and which preferably have external certification of the results of that effort. I'm not kidding here. And yes - it can be done.

Unless you have a better idea (and feel free to share - comment away), that's what it will really take to create change - Market forces. We certainly can't count on the government to do anything about it - they'll just come up with vague, useless legal acts that almost always miss the mark and cost the business sector billions (take SARBOX for example). Individual action and demanding that companies get serious - and that they do so in a manner where they can be formally reviewed and held accountable - is the best real-world way to force change.

I've been a Vonage VoIP phone service customer for quite a while now, and I'm on their unlimited calling plan. It works great. I am quite happy with the service. And as of today, even more reason to be happy.

They've announced that Unilited plan members can call Italy, France, Spain, the UK and Ireland for free (not cell phones or 900-numbers or anything, but pretty much everything else counts).

So, if you do a lot of calling to those countries (or wish you could afford to on you old-skool regular phone service), you might want to take a look at Vonage. Let me know and I can refer you - then we both get some free credits toward service, which is nice, eh? My email info is over there on the right.

I noticed that the nominees for this year's Academy Awards in the "Best Live Action Short Film" category are downloadable on iTunes. Wow, so cool - I'm a fan of good film quality, and nothing beats the under-thirty-minute format for making a real impact, without the typical fluff and other Hollywood-formula junk.

So, I downloaded. And watched. And so here you go - my own impressions, which will hopefully inspire you to watch. It doesn't have to be in your local theater to be good. In fact, if it's in the local theater, well... Never mind. Let's just stay focused on these short films.

First of all, if you have iTunes and a spare $10 (like as in total - you can get them all for less than ten bucks), then my first suggestion is that you should download them and watch (links to iTunes music store). They range in length from about 14 to 28 minutes, there are five films in the category, and they're certainly worth watching. It makes for a great evening, and it's an easy, painless way to expand one's film horizons, just slightly.

The second thing is, you won't want to watch all of these with the little kids. There's nothing really gross or pornographic, but there is some explicit content (nudity, language and violence) in a couple of them, and the content in others can occasionally be a bit heavy or dark for some.

That said, here are five short films you should watch, and what I thought of each:

Our Time Is Up (in iTunes)

This is the story of an American psychologist who finds he has a short time left to live, and how that impacts his relationships with his patients. It's well-done and the main character is played by Kevin Pollak. I liked this film at times. It's funny in a smart kind of way, and it's well-shot and the direction is interesting. But in the end, something about it felt, well, thin. Kind of like the way fast food fills your stomach but leaves you wishing there was something more. Certainly worth watching, but probably not one I would vote for, given the competition.

Six Shooter (in iTunes)   UPDATE: Oscar Winner

From the opening line, this is a dark, confrontational Irish film, which won the Oscar in the category of Best Live Action Short Film. The story plays character off of character to show how people deal with death and emotion, and how those differences - in hyperbole - affect one another. It's a smart film, one that slaps your sensibilities in the face and challenges the viewer to stay with the film, in the same difficult way the characters either choose to stay or go, I suppose. This is one of the two short films that gets an explicit label, for the violence and language. Be forewarned - If you have a hard time with dark themes of death and violence, this one may not be for you. For me, knowing ahead of time was enough. It's well-shot and the direction is very good. A young actor named Ruaihidhri Conroy steals the scene later in the film. Be prepared for the violence and murder/suicide themes and you should do okay.

Cashback (in iTunes)

From the UK comes a great short that will leave you thinking and laughing. By the way, this is the other film that gets an explicit rating, but for a different reason: This time it's because of the camera imagery of the female body, and I will leave it at that. The contrast of the characters is very subtle and the premise if great. A young man works nights in a grocery store, and the film examines the others who work there and how the pass the time. It's clever and funny, very well-directed and filmed. Sometimes simple and clever combine in a writer's mind to create something special - this is one example. Again, there's full-frontal nudity in this (not really distasteful, just a hard-to-explain surprise if you're watching with the young kiddies) and that's not explained on iTunes specifically, so watch appropriately and all. I really liked this one, and I laughed out loud at the last line.

Ausreisser (The Runaway) (in iTunes)

This is a great film. Of them all, it's right up there with two others for my vote (If I had a vote, that is). This German film shows a one-day interaction between a boy and his father, who never knew he had a son and has never wanted one. But it's much more special than that, and writing anymore would just take away from the film itself. The little boy portrays the part well, the direction cuts the scenes craftfully to keep things moving effectively. It's a sad, happy, sad, happy, sad again film that leaves you wondering if it was really only 23 minutes long. Well-directed, well-acted and well-shot, the only people who won't like it will be those who find themselves sitting there at the end muttering to themselves "I didn't get it." I love a good smart, emotional, intimate and personal film about two people and what really matters, and this is it. Well done.

The Last Farm (in iTunes)

This film comes from Iceland and is an amazingly well-crafted set of visuals and character play that paints a vivid picture of a man in deep sorrow. You may know what's coming, but in the end, don't we all? I think that's the point, or at least it's one of them. This film does such a terrific job of conveying so many complex, intertwined messages in such a short time. It's very sad and quite touching. If nothing else, it shows the simultaneous detailed complexity and abstract simplicity of the human spirit and how one's spirit can be so tightly tied to another. Excellent film. (Note: the iTunes reviews seem to have some twelve-year-olds that are giving it one star because the preview is not helpful, which skews the overall rating of the film itself, which is quite positive) 

So, which one do I like best? Well, honestly the one that stands out in my mind the most is The Runaway. It's a personal story that connects. The others that I rated with five light bulbs (heh) are also terrific, and any of those I think should get the award. More important than which gets the Oscar, I think, is the fact that not enough people get to see these types of films. My intent here was not to convince someone which I think is best, but rather to convince people to watch all these great little films, ones that they otherwise might miss.

So, go buy your tickets - all of them for ten bucks - and watch!

If you happen to be in a really big city, you might be able to see them in a theater, too.

Last week, while heading home from Seattle, we stopped briefly on the way out of town to pick up something at a mall. While there we saw a Brookstone store (I'm such a sucker for those places) and were pulled in by the magnetic gadgetness. Only Sharper Image compares in terms of pure gadget tractor beam power.

Anyhow, a minute or so after I entered the store, over walked an employee, nice guy. First words out of his mouth? Anything in the store you can touch on the floor - all floor models - 50% off (except massage chairs and tempurpedic mattresses, those were discounted 30%). Woah! So, I started looking around. It was almost too good to be true. And I just got my tax refund. Heh.

There were all sorts of cool things, and my mom and friend Mary Beth - they were there with me - picked up a few some stuff they liked. Me? Time to look for some electronics, baby. I was shocked to walk around a floor stand and find a Magellan Roadmate 760 GPS display - one of those displays where the device is security-sealed in a hard clear plastic frame, but it's a real, working model, you know? I call the sales guy over. Sure enough, half price, he says. He looks in the back to see if the box, papers and parts were anywhere to be found - and again, sure enough, he found everything. Score!

So, I bought it - essentially brand new for $450. Talk about luck. This is a GPS system that typically retails for around $750 to $900 in stores, sometimes more. It definitely pays to shop around. Froogle searching for new units shows you can get it for as low as around $700 if you look hard enough. Costco members can buy it online as of the time of this posting for $750 (after a $150-off coupon). I've been traveling a lot lately, and my job will have me traveling more and more in the future, so with all the unfamiliar cities and rental cars, having a GPS unit that does everything will be very useful.

Note: The RoadMate 760 has been around for something like a year now, and it's a terrific unit. The RoadMate 800 is pretty much the same device, only with a battery built into it, different color case, some button changes and whatnot - so you can use it without external power. And it costs a bit more.

It talks to you and gives turn by turn directions with street names (via a text-to-speech feature), has a bright touch screen display, and tons of cool features like auto dimming of the display at nights, auto color changing of the display at night, automatically increasing volume as you drive faster to account for road noise, and more. the pre-installed maps cover all of the US and Canada, and maps for Europe are pre-installed (you buy an unlock code to license those).

Having used mine a couple times, and with plenty of time to play with it (I'm a passenger when it comes to cars right now), I can say that the money was well-spent. The first time I plugged it in, it fired right up and found the GPS satellites. I created a route by entering the name "Olive Garden" into the locator as we were driving down the highway, and then instructing it to display destination results to me with the closest match shown first in the list. I selected the restaurant I wanted, and it displayed the address and phone number of the business (phone numbers - nice feature!), then I just clicked to create the driving route.

Almost immediately (this thing calculates routes very quickly), it started speaking the driving instructions and showed the route on the screen. As you drive, the map scrolls and updates, with your location in the center of the screen. I set the unit to display heading-up orientation, so that the top of the map is the direction of travel (you can also set it so that the top of the map is always north, but I didn't find that to be very intuitive). It warns you when you're two miles from a turn, then again at a half-mile, and one more time as you approach the turn. When you reach a waypoint in your route, it plays a sound (you can choose the sound, like a chime or beep, etc.) to let you know you've made it each step along the way. If you go off route it will immediately recalculate a new route and tell you where to turn, or if needed it will tell you to "make a legal U-turn" to get you back on track.

I'm a lucky guy to have found it at the price I did, but I can honestly say that after having used it for a day or two I would buy one anyhow at the available market prices. It makes driving and finding things remarkably easy and the routes it found were spot on. It will meet a real need with all my business and personal travel.

Features:

• Map Software: Ready to use detailed, seamless North American map (48 contiguous United States, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and all of Canada) loaded on internal 20GB HDD. Pre-loaded European maps may be unlocked for an additional fee - for more information see: http://www.magellangps.com/en/users/keysIntl760/
• User Interface: Touch Screen or dynamic keypad input
• Display: High Resolution TFT LCD full color touch-screen display automatically adjusts to lighting changes
• Display Size (H/W) 2.25" x 3.0"
• Route Calculator: Choose from four different route methods: Shortest Time, Shortest Distance, Least Use of Freeways, Most use of Freeways
• Turn-by-Turn Navigation: TrueView 3D screen shows upcoming turn while voice prompt politely gives turn-by-turn guidance in any of 11 languages (French, UK and US English, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish)
• Route Recalculation: Automatically and quickly calculates new route when car deviates from the established route
• Multi-Destination Routing: Create and save multi-destination trips. Use route optimization to determine the quickest way between stops or choose your own order.
• Track Progress on Map: Dynamically tracks progress on the onscreen map - the map scrolls as you drive
• Choose heading-up or north-is-up map orientation
• QuickSpell Technology: Simplifies data entry by pre-determining letters from the available database when spelling street and city names
• Address Book: Holds 200 addresses per user — up to 600 total
• Points-of-Interest: Almost 7 million points of interest
• Portable: True plug-n-play in any region - just a 12-volt lighter plug
• Mapping Data: Provided by NAVTEQ
• Dimensions: 3.25" H x 6.5" W x 2" D
• Weight: 13 oz.
• Mounting hardware: Supplied with suction cup and fully-articulable snake arm, quick release mount
• Device antenna folds up, can be removed to attach external antenna if desired

If you have not yet checked out BlogCode.com, I'd suggest you give it a try. It allows you to submit your blog, answer a few category ranking questions, and then see which other blogs are most like yours.

Alternatively, you can browse their listing for other blogs that have been "coded," look for your favorite blogs, and see other blogs that are similar.

The idea is that the blogs listed might be ones you'd like to read. Certainly there are other uses, as well.

I coded my blog the other day, and below are the closest-matched weblogs (as of the date this post is published) relative to the greghughes.net weblog. Per the folks at BlogCode.com, an 80% or better match is considered a very high score. Many of these blogs I already read or have read before, and some are new and unknown to me. I'll definitely have something to look around at for a while now.

Blog Name/URL (click each for blogcode results)	BlogCode Match
Scobleizer (http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/)	79.22 %
TechCrunch (http://www.techcrunch.com)	78.21 %
Agylen (http://agylen.com/)	77.96 %
Kevin Harder (http://kevinharder.com/blogs/kevin)	76.72 %
Ben Metcalfe Blog (http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/)	76.71 %
EvilSpudBoy (http://www.evilspudboy.net/)	76.43 %
Licence to Roam (http://blog.bibrik.com)	76.25 %
Newest Industry, The (http://newestindustry.org)	76.18 %
NeoThermic.com -- The well of information (http://www.neothermic.com)	75.95 %
FreeCashSpace (http://blog.freecashspace.com/index.html)	75.93 %
A Venture Forth (http://aventureforth.com)	75.89 %
Solution Watch (http://www.solutionwatch.com)	75.81 %
blogging.wurk.net (http://blogging.wurk.net)	75.64 %
Life On The Wicked Stage: Act 2 (http://wickedstageact2.typepad.com/)	75.43 %
PHOSITA ::: an IP law blog! (http://www.okpatents.com/phosita)	75.36 %
07Designs (http://www.07designs.com/)	75.12 %
Sunday Bytes (http://sundaybytes.com)	74.68 %
The Daily ACK (http://www.babilim.co.uk/blog/)	74.34 %
inluminent.com (http://inluminent.com)	74.29 %
adverblog (http://www.adverblog.com)	74.28 %
mathewingram.com/work (http://www.mathewingram.com/work)	74.26 %
integrating developer process (http://idp.shmarya.net)	74.24 %
View from the Isle (http://blog.larixconsulting.com/)	74.09 %
disambiguity (http://www.disambiguity.com)	73.72 %
Brandopia (http://brandopia.blogspot.com)	73.71 %
Creative Tech Writer, The (http://www.creativetechwriter.com)	73.65 %
Church Tech Matters (http://churchtechmatters.com)	73.62 %
Larry Borsato (http://www.larryborsato.com)	73.56 %
Linickx.com (http://www.linickx.com/blog)	73.49 %
brilliantdays.com (http://brilliantdays.com)	73.49 %
LaughingMeme (http://laughingmeme.org)	73.40 %
Superaff: The Affiliate Marketing Blog (http://superaff.com)	73.34 %
rexblog (http://www.rexblog.com)	73.30 %
Keith`s Inklings (http://talideon.com/weblog/)	73.29 %
Seven Degrees (http://sevendegrees.blogspot.com/)	73.27 %
StartupBoy.com - Journal (http://www.startupboy.com)	73.04 %
Vinny Carpenter`s blog (http://www.j2eegeek.com/blog)	73.00 %
A View Inside My Head (http://jasonf-blog.blogspot.com)	72.96 %
michael parekh on IT (http://mp.blogs.com)	72.79 %
Ninefish Tales (http://www.ninefish.com/blog)	72.54 %

(This is not a techie post, but since there are many people out there asking how I am doing after surgery, I'll write about it here. It will also help me remember how things went and what happened when)

It's two days after my surgery, and I'm heading home this evening from the hospital, which I am looking forward to. This hospital is great (truly), but somehow the idea of having a fire in the fireplace and being in familiar surroundings is more appealing.

My body hurts, pretty bad. Like I got hit by a truck. but it's not the old pain, which is great. I can walk a short while (well, it's a lot like walking, but it's labored at best), and the physical therapist had me walk up and down a flight of training stairs. Who would have known it could be so much work? This is a lot like learning to walk all over again.

I was able to take a quick shower today (they do some fancy stuff with the incision when they close you up, and showering is actually a good thing to do once you're up to standing for that long). Thank goodness! The hot water helped relax some of my tense muscles.

Yesterday was hell. Starting with X-rays (which came out just fine), standing up was very painful - I had terrible muscle spasms in my lower back and legs, along with pain and nausea. Nothing like feeling nauseas and (forgive the graphical discussion) having to puke, which of course hurts like hell since your abdominal muscles contract hard each time. I'm glad that phase seems to be over with.

More than a few people have asked me what exactly they did to my back during this surgery. I've decided its not a big secret or anything, and that in fact it's really very interesting. First they removed the inter-vertebral disc in the lowest part of my lower back, at the L5/S1 space. Discs in your back are the softer tissues between the bony vertebrae that act as shock absorbers and allow your back to move in all directions. think of them as like a little pillow filled with squishy stuff (well, sort of). Mine was herniated (torn and pooching out into the space where the nerves run) and degenerated (loss of water and height, thinner than it used to be). In other words, pretty much all ragged and shot. The medical term for the thinning and drying out of the disc is "Degenerative Disc Disease." You body won't correct it on it's own - the physical damage is done and it usually just gets worse over time.

Once they removed the bad disc, they put in an artificial disc replacement implant - a spinal prosthesis, you could say. It's called a Kineflex lumbar artificial disc, and you can see a quick video of what it looks like and how it works here. The Kineflex device is a newer design, and I received it through a study program that is comparing the Kineflex disc to the Charite disc as part of a FDA clinical trial in the United States (email or call me if you want some details - contact info is in the right-side menu bar). I did a lot of research - on fusion options, artificial disc options, do-nothing options, individual surgeons, etc - before I decided to go this route. Artificial discs are - in the right patients - an alternative to fusion of the two bones. The ADR devices don't act like a shock absorber (neither does fusion, for that matter), but they do retain close to natural motion in the joint. As you might imagine, it's a fairly expensive procedure, and at least for now insurance companies in the United States are rarely paying for the procedure because it's too new for them (the first model to get FDA approval was the Charite and that was in the fall of 2004), and they instead prefer the fusion route. That's the way health care works.

And for those people looking here for technical posts - well, sorry. They'll be back soon enough.

I broke down last week and bought an iPod. I got the 60GB model (5G iPod Video, black) and its a pretty cool device. Not without its quirks, but cool for sure. I like it, and I'll be adding some of the available (expensive) accessories as soon as I figure out which of the zillion accessory manufacturers actually makes something worth buying. Talk about a zoo...

iTunes is all hooked up (pretty cool app dontcha know), a few podcasts are subscribed (small list below for people who are interested) and a couple movies have been loaded. Great video conversion information and help can be found here, by the way. I've only bought one song on iTunes so far, and that will probably change but I think it says something that after having this thing for a week I've used it primarily to load some video for traveling and to subscribe to syndicated content (audio and video podcasts).

I really, really wish - every time I look at an apple product package - that they would at least tell me what is included and what's not. I know, I know... I could just ask any random human being on the street what came with their iPod and the zoo of accessories they own, since I am like the last person in the world to buy one of these things, but seriously - no compact wall charger? Leaving out the iPod dock is crazy enough, but I figured there would at least be an AC-outlet-to-USB thing in there.

One thing I learned early on: When it says "do not disconnect" on the screen, regardless of the fact that the message stays there for-freakin-ever, it's best not to disconnect it. If you do, and your iPod starts an endless cycle of reboot, power up, power off, flash the display, reboot, power up, power off, flash the... Yeah, anyhow the iPod updater has a "Restore" option that nukes the iPod, reformats the hard drive and installs all the software from scratch. Works wonders.

Oh and another thing - I can only sync this $400 device to one computer? Seriously? Ok, so I can hook up to a second computer and as long as I don't choose auto-sync, I can manually move files to the iPod. But this is not so good: Mac and Windows synced iPods are not compatible? Jeez, there's something worth spending some serious dev time on. Using the iPod updater to reformat the thing so I can use it on the Mac mini doesn't solve any problems, it creates them. And there's no way I'm buying Apple computers just to work with the iPod.

Oh, and copy-protection and all that RIAA crap aside, iTunes is a service, and it should flow from computer to computer with the authenticated user's settings and content, and I should be able to sync to the iPod anywhere I am logged in. In other words, some content everywhere, and associate the device with my user account, not my computer.

Anyhow, in the accessories department, it's pretty clear I need an iPod dock. I'll have to break down and ask my friends if it comes with a USB cable, or if I have to purchase that separately, too. I won't be shelling out the $20 for Apple's video cable so I can play content on my TV or projector - I think I'll just use one of the almost-exactly-the-same cables I already have lying around the house and just mix up the plugs as described at the Mac Dev Center site:

• Plug the red RCA plug into your TV's yellow RCA jack.
• Plug the yellow RCA plug into your TV's white RCA jack.
• Plug the white RCA plug into your TV's red RCA jack.

Pure. Freakin. Genius. If it works.

But don't get me wrong here. I'm complaining a bit about the proprietary, non-standard and closed nature of the Apple way of business, but this is a terrific piece of hardware, as the marketplace has clearly proven. Audio quality is great. The user experience is simple, flows and just works. But you already know that.

I stopped by a couple stores the other night between appointments and checked out the plethora of radio-transmitter accessories. I spend a lot of time driving (two hours of commute time daily), so having something that does a good job of transmitting relatively high quality audio to my FM car radio would be nice. On the higher end of the car-audio purchasing spectrum (about $200), the Harman Kardon Drive+Play looks really cool. Not sure if it's video iPod compatible, but I have emailed them to ask. The Monster iCruze also looks nice and it is confirmed to work with the iPod Video models, but I need to make sue my car stereo is compatible - And it's on sale in a huge way as of the time of this writing: $99 for a complete kit. A FAQ page is here.

Oh, and (sidebar comment here) you gotta check out the videos on this page at the HK Drive+Play site - especially the "Title and Registration" one. Heheh...

Below are the few podcasts to which I've subscribed so far. Now that I am coming back to podcasts (my first round with them was more geeky in nature than practical, which is my approach nowadays) the number of shows I am interested in subscribing to is relatively small. I'm pickier. You'll note these all tend to be either professionally produced shows or well-produced indi ones, and that the only common denominator is that they're relevant and matter to me. And none of them are podcasters talking about podcasting. Thank goodness we moved past that phase.

Note: The iTunes interface makes it pretty much impossible for me to figure out where the real home pages are for these podcasts, so it's hard to link you to them, sorry. If someone knows a trick, please tell me (hey Apple - seems like easy access to a phobos.apple.com subscription link plus a standardized "home site" URL in the iTunes XML and UI would be a nice thing to do for sharing subscription links?).

• Diggnation (video and audio podcasts) - these guys sit around and discuss what's hot on Digg.com
• Ebert & Roeper - movie reviews from the top critics, weekly audio from the broadcast television show
• Engadget podcast - ultimate gadget geek site and podcast show (but their RSS feed is broken and iTunes is out of date, ugh)
• Major Nelson Radio - podcast from inside the world of the XBOX and XBOX Live!
• NASACast video - this Week at NASA video podcast - just a cool, short video update on what's happening at the space agency
• Security Now! podcast - Consumer focused security audio show - We really need more security-focused podcasts
• Superman Returns, Bryan Singer's Journal - The director of Superman Returns video-blogs lots of interesting stuff in the process of the creation of Superman Returns, which is set to hit theaters this year. Professionally produced video shows (I don't think Bryan is shooting any of these, but hey...)

Such the conundrum. In my kitchen pantry I have four cans of Wolf Brand Chili. They taunt me. I stare at them every now and then an ponder the many Wolf Brand possibilities. I do this because they have been in my pantry now for, oh, a few years. I think seriously about opening one, scraping it out over a bed of Fritos, running some cheese on top and radiating it all in the Microwave. Health food at its best.

I'd actually do it, too, if I wasn't afraid I'd freakin' die. I mean, just how long is canned chili good for, anyway?

I mean, the answer must be either "a finite period of time" (undoubtedly substantially less than four years) or else it must be something along the lines of "forever." Like as in "put canned chili in your Y2K and terrorist attack supply caches."

So, in my quest for knowledge I did the most obvious thing your average 38-year-old guy would be expected to do when confronted with obscure kitchen-related trivia of such potential impact as to rise to the level of life-and-death.

I called my mom.

Her advice? "If it's not swollen or split open and as long as it doesn't hiss when you open it, it's probably fine." Hmmm... Probably?

I told her "Yeah, well I probably still won't open it."

Not that I don't believe my mom. It's just that, well, maybe I don't believe her. It's just not like her to be so non-committal. "Probably fine." Heh. Right. She's probably taking out an insurance policy on me right now. Nah, she'd never do that.

Okay, well... Time for some search engine research action, then. After Googling for a half hour and (uncharacteristically) coming up with practically nothing you'd consider useful (more proof that I'm basically just completely random), I decided to take a chance and just open the stupid thing, listen for the hissing, smell it, eyeball it, and nuke the living hell out of it before allowing it to reach my mouth.

What the hell, ya only live once. And I'm hungry.

So, if I don't ever post here again, I'm probably dead from botulism or some other nasty crap. Wish me luck.

UPDATE: Opening can... Hiissssssss... Woahhhh... Never mind, I'm not touching that stuff. Heh. I'll just go hungry.

I've written before about FrontMotion's Firefox MSI installers and their Active Directory ADM policy templates, but with the recent release of Firefox v1.5 and the resultant updating of the installers by FrontMotion, I figured it's worth another mention. In a security-conscious IT environment, we all know how difficult it can be to exercise the necessary level of control over programs that are used to access the Internet - and the web browser is number one or two on the list of possible problem Internet apps (along with email programs). So being proactive whenever the tools are available to us is quite important.

Luckily, FrontMotion distributes MSI (Microsoft Installer) versions of the Firefox web browser for people to use (free of charge at this time) and there are two editions of the installers available. FrontMotion's Firefox Community Edition - which is the one that includes the Active Directory integration for centralized management and control - is slated to be updated shortly, and their stand-alone MSIs (which are not AD-integrated) have already been updated to incorporate Firefox v1.5.

• Download Firefox MSI installer files (stand-alone)
• Download FrontMotion Firefox Community Edition for use with Active Directory

The features of the Firefox Community Edition should be of interest to companies that centrally manage software for IT and security purposes, and the package allows you to upgrade non-MSI installations as well as those from other organizations. Features of the community edition include:

• Active Directory deployable and upgradeable.
• Active Directory management through Administrative Templates (*.adm).
• Desktop Icon similar to IE.
• Shell integration similar to IE.
• Set Default browser
• Macromedia Flash plug-in preinstalled
• Detect and upgrades non-MSI installs.
• Can upgrade 3rd party MSI's from MIT, Webheat.co.uk, and ZettaServe.
• Able to properly perform uninstalls and restores system associations

You can subscribe to the FrontMotion mailing list for occcasional announcements about updates at: http://www.frontmotion.com/mailinglist.php. I don't see a blog or RSS feed, but we can hope.

Microsoft yesterday announced a zero-day exploit that affects Internet Explorer. The Zero Day Security weblog describes it well:

"A UK group known as 'Computer Terrorism' has released a proof of concept zero day exploit for fully patched Windows systems running Internet Explorer 5.5 & 6.x that takes advantage of a previously known JavaScript vulnerability. Microsoft Security Advisory 911302 covers the essentials. The only Windows systems seeming not affected are Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 with SP1.

"Of course, to be compromised the user must first browse to a malicious web site. According to Computer Terrorism: Contrary to popular beliefs, the aforementioned security issue is susceptible to remote, arbitrary code execution, yielding full system access with the privileges of the underlying user.

"Several informative sites include Microsoft, FrSIRT, MITRE, US-CERT, InfoWorld, eWeek and SANS (which suggests disabling Java or using another browser and has a BleedingSnort Rule on their site).

"Get ready for a patch blast from Microsoft on this one."

Microsoft's comments have been updated with the latest information. From their Security Advisory 911302 information page:

"...We have also been made aware of proof of concept code targeting the reported vulnerability but are not aware of any customer impact at this time. We will continue to investigate these public reports.

"Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate action to help protect our customers. This may include providing a security update through our monthly release process or providing an out-of-cycle security update, depending on customer needs.

"This issue was originally publicly reported in May as being a stability issue that caused the browser to close. Since then, new information has been posted that indicates remote code execution could be possible. Microsoft is concerned that this new report of a vulnerability in Internet Explorer was not disclosed responsibly, potentially putting computer users at risk. We continue to encourage responsible disclosure of vulnerabilities. We believe the commonly accepted practice of reporting vulnerabilities directly to a vendor serves everyone's best interests..."

Want to create some of your own holiday cards and stationery? Hey, might as well get started now. Head over to Office Online and download templates for:

• Greeting cards
• Recipe cards
• Mailing labels
• Meal menus
• Gift labels
• Banners
• That dreaded Family Holiday Newsletter

There are content categories for holiday cards in general, Christmas, Hanukkah, and lots of others, too.

Lots of stuff there to use and customize. Enjoy.

A long, long time ago, I ripped apart my Series 1 TiVo PVR and put in a couple 120GB hard drives. In the end I got an obscenely huge number of hours of recording time, plus I added an ethernet card so a phone line's not needed to get programming info, and then I did some other fun "hacking."

Anyhow, I woke up this morning and found out my trusty modified TiVo was misbehaving badly. Or maybe it's just sick - It had a choppy image and sound on both live TV and recordings, even on the menu systems you can hear the drive inside moving between glitchy animation pauses on the screen, and it's exhibiting generally sluggish, choppy behavior. So, I figured I'd sacrifice everything on it (it's practically full - maybe another cause of the problem, who knows?) and I did a delete and reset through the TiVo's menu system.

That was at about 7am. The system restarted and the screen read, "Clearing and deleting everything. This will take an hour." It's after 2pm now and the screen hasn't changed. Seem like either the system assumed it has a 20GB hard drive in it still, or the hard drive(s) are having problems. But, it sounds like it's still methodically plugging away, so I'll let it go for a while longer and just see what happens.

Anyone else been through this? Any ideas? I've had this TiVo since they first came out, and it's served me well, but I'm also thinking maybe it's time to pick up a Series 2 TiVo and open it up and do some more PVR hacking.

If you're a SharePoint 2003 developer or system administrator, you know how lost one can get in the guts of the systems. For the longest time, SharePoint documentation was almost non-existent, but now you can get decent information from Microsoft, as well as from other parties. The SDK, however, can be a bit difficult to wade through. A visual representation of some of the underlying SharePoint core functionality would be a great thing to have.

Enter Mindsharp - they offer documentation, courseware and training for SharePoint professionals, and one of their offerings is three free posters, which they will ship to you. You'll have to sign up on the web site, and they'll ship to the address and info you provide. One set of posters is available at no cost to residents of the US, UK, and Canada. Additional sets can be purchased for $20 (Mindsharp's cost to produce, package, process, and post). Electronic versions of the posters are also available for $45/each (the entire set must be purchased).

The three posters include:

• Windows SharePoint Services Object Model
• Windows SharePoint Services Administration Roadmap
• SharePoint Portal Server Administration Roadmap

Mindsharp also sponsors a mailing list for SharePoint admins and developers. Send email to subscribe-sharepointdiscussions@yahoogroups.com to join.

Other SharePoint information from MindSharp that you can get from their web site:

White Papers

• Best Practices for Designing and Deploying a SharePoint Portal
• How to Move Your Portal Farm from One Server to Another

Webinars

• Reader Course
• My Site Course

Live Meetings

• Moving a Server Farm

I've recently gone on a run of trying all kinds of new devices in the PDA/MobilePhone/Email-Enabled-Device arena. I have used various Blackberry devices for a few years now (and have been using the Blackberry phone devices since they were first born). I have occasionally moved to other devices to try them out and see if they would suffice for use in my work. Recently I undertook that sort of project, evaluating various mobile carriers and their networks and devices, so it's been a real gadget-land around these parts since around the first of the year.

I won't be writing about the networks and service providers (maybe some other time), but I did want to catalog some of what I encountered, the geeky part of the project: All these nifty mobile devices.

It's worth noting right up front that as a general rule, I've pretty much always been disappointed with more-than-just-a-phone devices whenever I've tried them, for one reason or another. My experience has been the same with most of this latest run of devices I have tested. Also, I wrote this entry/review over the course of the past couple months, going back to it periodically to document bits of my experience over time.

To cut to the chase, let me jump to the end of my story briefly: As of yesterday I am back (by choice) with a Blackberry phone from Cingular - the very same model of phone I had before this whole testing process started. It's a RIM 7290 device. And that's a choice I made after using a whole slew of what people say are the coolest, newest phone/PDA/email/whatever devices.

You know what they say - Once you've had Blackberry, you can never go backberry. Or, uh, something like that... Sorry. Bad joke. But it's true.

My recent device trials (and tribulations) have included the Audiovox 5600 smartphone running Windows Mobile 2003 from AT&T/Cingular (which has been the rage among bloggers the past several months - it's unofficial nickname is the "Scoble Phone") and the Blackberry 7100t phone from T-Mobile. I've also used the Blackberry 7100g (Cingular) and the PalmOne Treo 650, both from Cingular. Rounding out the list was the Siemens SX66 device, which has a slide-out keyboard and WiFi built in, running the PocketPC Phone Edition of Windows Mobile 2003.

In each case, there were things I liked about these devices, and there were things I didn't like.

Audiovox 5600 SmartPhone (running Windows Mobile 2003 - ATTWS/Cingular)

I'll give Audiovox kudos for making a really cool phone in the gadgety sense, but I have to give it lower scores in terms of it's practical utility. Keep in mind, I use this kind of device as a tool, one that I use constantly for communicating and staying in touch for work. The "Scoble Phone" has been hyped up as the only device you'll need to carry around, and it has all kinds of nifty things on it, like mobile MSN Messenger, Windows Media Player, the ability to use Mini-SD cards for tons of extra storage, a built-in still/motion camera (of very mediocre quality), etc. But the software apps are a little glitchy, and I lost count of how many times this thing either reset itself or required me to pry the battery out of the back and replace it in order to get it started and working again. On top of that, while the geek/nifty factor is fairly high (I can see how Windows Mobile is a useful and appealing mobile OS), the practical/regular use score is low - it just doesn't work that well for me, beyond its simple use as a phone and SMS device. Text input is T9, which is cumbersome at best and impractical for work. Bluetooth for hands-free use worked somewhat reliably, but was problematic from time to time. Audio quality was good. It's small and compact and has a certain "neato" quality. But it doesn't allow me to quickly and efficiently communicate, except via voice calls. I handed it back. I liked the phone, but it didn't work for me, not even close. And by the way - as of the time of this writing, Cingular is not offering the phone on its web site.

Blackberry 7100t (T-Mobile) and 7100g (Cingular)

These two devices are essentially identical in terms of the guts and the software running on them, but the Cingular device has a better form factor and body/shell - It's a lot more solid, the keyboard is laid out better and is easier to use, and I get a strong feeling it would last longer than the T-Mobile model in a durability sense. Text input is a unique hybrid type - the keyboard has a standard qwerty style layout like all Blackberry devices, but instead of one letter per key like others by RIM, the 7100 series has two characters per key. It does the predictive text thing, a lot like T9 does on a mobile phone keypad, but it's considerably more accurate and a lot faster to type with. Making the move from a standard-keyboard Blackberry to this device takes a little getting used to, but after a few days I found myself fairly comfortable with the layout. Bluetooth hands-free functionality was flawless and reliable - better than the Audiovox phone. RIM figured out some good things with this device, but there are a few things missing that keep it from being a truly killer device: There's no MP3 support like you get in the other phones tested, and the ear-piece audio level at max volume is painfully quiet (a common complain with Blackberry phones that really needs to be addressed). There's no camera, and since this is a biz-class device, that makes sense. But RIM should really consider building a model with a camera option, an SD slot, MP3 capabilities, an MP3 voice recorder, MSN instant messaging (they included Yahoo! and AOL on this one, so why the heck not), and better audio capabilities (ring tones, music, etc). In fact, a Windows Mobile device that actually shipped with the vaporware (to date) Blackberry Connect software package would have me running for the store. But, progress is progress, and all in all the 7100 is a pretty good tool that makes some improvements on earlier models. But hey, put the standard RIM keyboard back, please - if it ain't broke, well - you know... I returned both these devices as they were loaners, but I'd recommend them to others, and a few people I know have bought these recently - and they're thrilled with them.

PalmOne Treo 650 (ATTWS/Cingular)

Topping out in the community's collective Bling! category is the PalmOne Treo 650, a nice looking and feeling PalmOS-based SmartPhone with lots of counterintuitive functionality and mediocre documentation. Now I remember why I left the PalmOS behind a few years ago. You'd think I'd have remembered, but sometimes we just need to be reminded. This is another phone with a so-so-quality camera built in (better in overall image quality than the Audiovox 5600, but with the same low 640x480 resolution). It has a full keyboard built on, which is arguably it's most redeeming factor, but in daily use the keyboard feels lumpy, klutzy and crowded compared to any RIM/Blackberry device I have used. The Treo uses a touch screen and a slide-out stylus for screen navigation, as well as a set of directional and select buttons. The screen is bright and contrasty, which is nice. Battery life is fairly limited when you're actually using it. Call audio is excellent, and is louder in earpiece volume when compared to the other devices mentioned here. The email setup and use of multiple email programs ranks a "so-so" score, and overall it was clunky to use. I can't count how many clicks, scrolls and stylus gestures/touches it took to do even the simplest activities. If I am sitting in a chair, have some time, and have both hands completely free and nothing else to distract me, I can use this device. But I don't want to. Returned to sender, can't recommend it.

Siemens SX66 PocketPC Phone (running Windows Mobile 2003 - ATTWS/Cingular)

I was excited about getting my hands on this device, and hopeful that it would meet my needs and satisfy the usability/utility requirements. I also hoped it would have Blackberry Connect software on it, as was advertised some places and rumored at others. It didn't have it, but I tried it anyhow. The first things I noticed was that I was able to use it with my Exchange server (the Audiovox device crapped out if I tried to use a "space" character in my password. I had thought [assumed] the inability to use a space in a password was a limitation of the OS, but this device proved me wrong). The screen on this thing is very nice, and the backlight is bright and contrasty. Bluetooth worked better than any of the other devices in hands-free mode, and the keyboard makes it more accessible and usable than the Audiovox device by far. But the keyboard's pimple-style chicklet bubble layout was painful to use in the real wold - keys are tiny and way too close together unless you;re six years old (probably not the target market). Battery life was pretty awful, especially if you use the WiFi at all. Even without using WiFi, the battery was dying on me regularly between charges, and since there's no USB charging with this thing I could not charge it in the car or anywhere convenient (You have to charge in the cradle, which is plugged into the wall via a power adapter, or you use the same wall plug adapter with a socket adapter to go straight to the device. So be prepared to be tangling the wall adapter cord up a lot to carry it with you everywhere, or else plan on a dead phone periodically - dumb). To top it all off, this morning I grabbed the device and went to turn it on, but it did not respond. Yet, the little green service light was flashing so I knew it had power to it. I pulled the battery put it back (the Windows Mobile version of CTRL-ALT-DEL), but still no response. I started driving to work and tried it again while I was stopped for coffee at the local store. Voila! Up it comes, but totally reset, nuked, blown away, default ROM settings - everything I had set and stored before was gone. Good thing the important stuff was on my SD card... I've read and heard rumors of serious software problems with this phone, and when you combine that with the lame keyboard that looks cool but isn't at all usable, well... Returned, with prejudice.

Back In Black - or, Right Black Where I Started From

So, as of this morning I am back running on a Blackberry 7290 phone with the latest, solid Blackberry software. This is the same model I gave up a few months ago to do the testing. Sure, it's not as fancy in many ways as the 7100-series, but it's got the best keyboard and it works, works, works. And probably the best test of all was this: Within one minute of picking this thing back up and setting a couple of device options to something other than BB's defaults, I suddenly found myself orders of magnitude faster and more productive than I was with any of the other devices I'd tried.

RIM got something right when they built the Blackberry. Then they added a phone to the device. Then they did this funky keyboard thing with the 7100 that works pretty well. It works, and it is usable.

There's a great book I've held onto for a few years now called "Don't Make Me Think" by author Steve Krug. It's all about usability (as related to web design, but that doesn't matter, the same concepts apply here). The reasons the Blackberry devices are all so good is because they are truly intuitive - I don't have to spend my time clicking and clicking and tapping and clicking just to try to find some simple function, and the user interface is so intuitive it becomes almost reflexive to use. RIM wins because their devices have utility. It's because they're reliable. It's because they're usable. I have confidence that RIM/Blackberry will keep that as their core philosophy, and so I am very much interested to see what will come next from the company.

But damnit, I still want to see and use a good, reliable phone that runs Windows Mobile latest edition, with Blackberry Connect software on it! PLEASE! There's a lot of room for growth, and it's not all about smaller, smaller, smaller, or geekier, geekier geekier... It's all about usable, usable, usable. Size is just one part of usability. Geeky is fun, but not always practical. Who will end up winning this game? Can't wait to see.

But for now, Blackberry's in the lead in my book.

It's amazing how far we have all come.

I can sit here in the PDX (that's Portland, Oregon) airport, and in all of 10 minutes resolve a minor work crisis, post a new web page to a business web site and get it reviewed and approved, order flowers to be delivered for my mom's birthday today (Happy Birthday Mom!), sync all my email into Outlook from the office, IM with my web hosting provider (who is in the UK) about trapping email viruses, answer a few work emails, and post this blog entry.

All that thanks to free 802.11G WiFi at the airport, with a full signal and none of those get-your-email-etc registration hassles. So nice.

I have a full hour before my flight leaves (traffic was, thankfully, quite lite). Who knows what all I'll be able to get done between now and then.

It used to be that waiting at the airport meant you were completely out of touch unless you wanted to use an airport pay phone (never my favorite thing, either financially or from a hygiene standpoint). Anymore you can't help but be connected and active. I may be flying off to Reston Virginia, but my ability to communicate and stay productive is hardly affected.

It's true that there are some negative effects of always being connected. Stress from overconnectedness (ohhhhh new word, cool...) is a real thing for some people. But managed carefully and moderated successfully, it can also be a great thing.

It's a whole different world we live in today.

In the random fun, complete waste of time department (you know you want to, come one, go ahead, click already):

Click click click.

Your entertainment options?

• Meteors
• Nuke
• Flood
• Mars attacks!
• Dinosaurs
• Fried eggs
• Spilled coffee
• Biological

(via Scoble)

It's a bit crazy in my world right now, between work and recovery from surgery. I'll never get around to blogging my own thoughts about all these cool things that caught my eye, so here you go - a bunch of random, cool links gathered from other blogs since the first of the year. See something you like? Then you go blog about it and let me know.

1. How I Made Four Minutes About Podcasting (from: Lisa Williams)
2. Super-size the boss
3. Need a Job ? (from: Mark Cuban)
4. Lovin' it a little too much
5. PC Based Mobile Registry Editor
6. Firefox Pomposity
7. Asteroid Named After Douglas Adams
8. BitTorrent Podcasting How-To Video
9. Prepping for Windows Server 2003 SP1....
10. BizTalk Server virtual labs available online
11. MCE in the car
12. oregon blogging map
13. PhoneThemes.com - This is gonna be huge
14. Metroblogging Bangkok: Phuket Disaster Relief: Day 2
15. The Motorola MPx goes on sale in Brunei
16. Niveus Pocket Remote - Wi-Fi Pocket PC MCE 2005 Controller Application
17. Robotics Alive Series: Monkey Head!
18. View your desktop as a list
19. New Media Center Universal Remotes at CES
20. Talk to your PocketPC Phone
21. More security audio resources
22. Wowee Robosapien V2 and Robosapien Dinosaur
23. What IS a security vulnerability, anyway?
24. Tinstall sounds cool
25. Vonage F-1000 Wi-Fi Handset
26. Media Center 2005 Wiki
27. Visual Studio 2005 CTP - December 2004 - DVD (English)

Got Windows XP and/or Media Center 2005? Then you’ll probably want to get the new Holiday Fun Pack for Windows XP.

There’s lots of cool stuff in there. Note that one thing Microsoft does not make very clear up front is any of the details about the Tweak Media Center 2005 power toy that’s included. Check out this article on Sean Alexander’s digital media blog for some more info in that regard.

If you’re visually motivated and into the winter thing, I don’t see why you would want to skip this download…

Download the Winter Fun Pack 2004 now! Spice up your music, photos and more with amazing holiday visualizations, skins, powertoys and other fun add-ons. There’s something for the whole family!

The Winter Fun Pack 2004 includes:

Stunning Holiday Vizualizations for Windows Media Player 10
Ring in the holiday cheer! Give your desktop the Holiday touch with three cool seasonal Player Visualizations. Enjoy the HOT new WhiteCap Holiday Viz with nearly 20 holiday images that explode in vivid color including a snowman, candy cane, shooting star and more. Cool down with the chilling Ice Storm Viz, then warm up next to the fire place with the Yule Log Viz.

Amazing Holiday-Themed Skins for Windows Media Player 10
Give your Media Player a wintry makeover with 5 skins for Windows Media Player 10 including Frostbite, Ice, and Ginger man and Ginger woman skins. Also, take Windows Media Player 10 to the next level with the hot new Halo 2 skin, which is sure to be one of the hottest selling games this Holiday season. [Ed: Halo 2 skin and Holidays? Uhhh… Ok…]

PowerToys for Windows Media Player 10
Let Windows Media Player 10 take the pain out of your holiday parties with Holiday Auto Playlists (including Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Christmas). Personalize your email or blog by showing the song that’s playing on your desktop. And for power users, easily export your media library information into Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access and others.

Photos, Media Center and More!
Get into the holiday spirit and transform your desktop into a winter wonderland with new captivating desktop wallpaper images from Corbis. Get more out of Media Center 2005 with the new TweakMCE 2005 powertoy. Download Kris the Holiday Dancing Elf, Photo Story 3 for Windows, and more!

(via Sean Alexander)

Microsoft today released Windows Media Player 10 to the web.

Jump on over and grab the download, find out about some of the new and forthcoming devices that take advantage of the technology, check out the WMP 10 trailer (300Kb), or view out one of the online streaming videos just released that describe the new features of the technology:

Sync Your Portable Media Center Device with Your PC

Synchronize Music and Pictures to a Portable Media Center Device

Convert and Sync Video to Your Portable Media Center Device

Using Windows Media Player 10 to Create a Digital Jukebox

Cool stuff. I like the Bliss add-on visualization, that's nifty.

I have only found one minor glitch so far (and its one that occurred in the tech-beta version, as well, but this is a fresh install on a clean, non-beta-poisoned computer). In the upper right corner there is a broken image icon, reminiscent of Internet Explorer. I wonder how much IE is leveraged in the WMP10 interface. Interesting. A reboot did not fix the issue, either. Clicking on the broken image placeholder resultsi n the same menu associated with the down-arrow image to the right of the broken one.

Time to find a Portable Media Device!

Corey Gouker is a Media Center MVP, and he has posted a detailed description of his experiences with a new Creative Portable Media Center Device. Included at the bottom of the article are a couple of Windows Media videos and a gallery of images showing the device in action.

For anyone who has been wondering what these are all about and what you'll really get, check this out - with the videos and his description, it's a view that you've likely not had til now, unless you have been lucky enough to get your grubby hands on one.

Also: Sean Alexander post more links to details about the devices.

[via Scobleizer]

“You can start a very long and pointless discussion by wondering about this topic on the net.”

Yeah, no kidding. Nothing says lame quite like “THAT'S NOT HOW YOU PRONOUNCE THAT!”

Gimmee a break...

Read here: http://www.eeng.brad.ac.uk/help/.faq/.unix/.pronun.html