greg hughes - dot net

My Blackberry phone device up and died on me as soon as I got to Hawaii a couple weeks ago (a blessing in disguise to be sure), so I got a replacement this week. The new one is the Blackberry 7290 model - the latest rendition of the smaller form factor devices with the full keyboard. It's nice. Have fun with an online tour here.

Want to add ringtones? Instructions here.

Some things I like about it:

• Nice, contrasty, clear color screen
• CallerID info is now big, bold and easy to read, and backlights itself for dark places
• A new Help icon on the home screen that works really well
• VERY bright back-light, and two-stages of brightness (hit the back light button once for half light, again for full brightness, again to turn off - cool)
• Color background images for the home screen and the "screensaver" mode, and a new icon on the home screen called "pictures" that I'll have to explore a bit
• Bluetooth (YAY!) (but no printed documentation in the box on how to use it - Go to the help icon on the device's home screen - that only took me a day to find... Once you enable and configure it in the device settings an icon is added to your home screen, as well)
• Quad-band radio on AT&T (850/900/1800/1900 GSM/GPRS) means noticeably improved network coverage over other devices I have used
• USB charging and connector uses a standard USB cord with the itty-bitty plug on the device end, same as several other devices I use like my MP3 player
• Improved keyboard layout (subtle)
• Better information on the home screen - if I enable wireless calendar sync with Exchange for example, the icon on the home screen changes to indicate it's active in that mode. In vibrate mode, the profile icon (which is moved to the home screen, by the way - that took me another hour to find heheh) gets an overlay of - uhhhh - a vibrate gylph or something like that.

A couple of things are really bugging me, though:

• I can't get the RBRO code to work on the browser that's installed on this one. If I go to Google, I'd like to be able to choose to use HTML only. I'll have to play with this some more. Trying to view a larger HTML page results in an error that the page is too large to convert to "HDML" - whatever that is... That sucks, guys.
• The thumb wheel used for navigation is a little too stiff and slick compared to other BB models like the 7280 or 7780, which means my thumb slips a lot. I am sure I will adjust, it just bugs for now.
• Mine came with a version of the v3.6 desktop software in the box that needs to be updated to ensure wireless calendar works correctly. If you use it, get SP3a. Hmph.
• Still uses the old style ring tones. Come on, guys - polyphonic tones have been around for quite a while now - what's up with that? UPDATE: At least you can add your own simple MIDI files!
• Maximum volume on the earpiece is lower than on other models. It makes it harder to use in noiseier environments. But it's still adequate, just not as nice as other Blackberry phones I have used.

Other than that, I am pretty happy with this thing. It's (for the most part) a real improvement.

Robert Scoble opened the session on Overload - or as he coined it in the opening conversation, "Information Pressure." He deals with 950+ RSS feeds that he has subscribed to, and so he's a good person to have guide the discussion on this topic.

What a great session.

There are already 4.5 million blogs out there. Overload is inevitable for many. Everyone has limits. They're different for each of us.

For my part, I have to manage my RSS feeds regularly. I am subscribed to more than 500 in total. I move them, reclassify them, and occasionally (but rarely) even unsubscribe to ones that have not met my needs or expectations, and I also have a section in my RSS reader for those feeds I want to keep track of, but which I don't put in my higher-priority list. They are my general dumping ground categories, if you will - good enough to watch now and then when I have time, but not part of my daily chores.

But then there are my high-priority feeds, and there are a couple hundred of those. I deal with my primary RSS feeds daily - usually several times a day. I get critical information I need for my work delivered to me in RSS throughout the day. It's reliable, fast and goes with me. It just works. It's lightweight. I can use it the way I want.

But that is exactly what makes it easy to get overloaded. Make something that really, really works, and people like me with use the hell out of it, sometimes to the point of making it less usable.

Scoble asks an excellent question - What about people who read only say 20 feeds? Why not more? One good answer: "If I save 20 minutes not reading feeds, that's 20 minutes I can spend looking at a sunset." Or maybe a sunrise. How true.

Which makes me think - maybe we could convince Nick Bradbury (who is the author of FeedDemon) to consider providing a way to see what feeds I have not read in a given period of time, those that have not posted in x days or weeks, those that are no longer there, and report that info to me and then let me act on it. Also let me report on the opposite - what feeds are really really active? I'd want to be able to move any of them, mark them, delete them, or a combination of the above. Kind of a little clean-up wizard. Hmmmm... Is this what attention.xml does?

Robert makes what seems like it should be an obvious suggestion, but is a good one to hear: Write better headlines. Tell me what it's about. A head line of "GAHHHH!" does nothing for me when what the article is about is something like "I had a really frustrating day at work today." Or something like that.

Or maybe attention.xml should do this, as one person suggested: "Here's the list of people I don't pay attention to anymore."

A tangent topic of "what do you use your blog for" came up (and for some reason Robert said my name when he showed the crowd his feed aggregator - thanks for the plug, heh). Interesting topic. Blogs are used for all sorts of things: Personal memory catalogs, culture development and coming together of people with similar interests, espousing opinion, publishing fact, conversing and replacing letter writing, you name it.

And thanks to Robert for asking for people at the conference to stand at the mic who had not spoken yet. Nice job guiding and maintaining the focus of the conversation without controlling the session too much. I like it when I hear Robert say, "That's for all of you to decide, right?" and "What else would you like to talk about?" (photo by Doc Searls)

Brainstorming ideas on overload:

• Social networking worked into bloglines - show me recommendations based on who I read, ability to browse the network of content.
• Eric Rice says - with these ideas, are we risking going away from that peer-to-peer distributed model, away from the model we were trying to reject?
• What goes on between the time when an idea has an idea and when I read it - content producer can filter, linkers can filter when they describe and link, governments in same places might filter, services can filter, and the end user can filter content. How do we find information unfiltered without overload? Can it be done?
• A certain Zen acceptance that there might be something you won't see - don't give in to the pressure to give in to the anal-retentive obsession to read and see everything.
• Thought that the major overlaid is not the number of blogs, but the comments, which ones are by smart comments, which are on topic, which are tolls, etc.
• Podcasts control the browser. (Note: This is an idea I have already given to a team I am working with, but MP3 won't do it. Windows Media will, but that's not open).
• There's a problem in the room and in the blogosphere in general with blogaholism. It's causing a lot of problems, solve it like a medical condition? (hmmm)

By the way, it's hard to say enough time how much Doug Kaye and ITConversations rule. I can't be there, but I can be there. Nice - thanks.

And she's right.

I am listening to a live windows media feed from BloggerCon about podcasting (I am not there because I needed to stay home for other things, so I canceled my trip).

Adam Curry says (paraphrased) don't think you can change the name, it's a done deal. He's right (unfortunately). No one thought ahead about the name, or not far enough ahead. Or there was an agenda to use the name for any of a number of reasons. Or it's a good name because it's catchy and immediately invokes interest when you hear or read it. Whatever. I *still* think we need to get away from the name when we think up new additions to this technology, just to make sure people don't assume it's just for the iPod. Because like it or not, they do.

For the creator, this is personal Internet broadcasting. For the end users, it's simply audio aggregation with a magical ability to get the files on your computer and/or portable audio device of choice.

And it's in its infancy as far as time alive and maturity of technology. John Dvorak was at least partially right. It pretty much sucks for the average user. At least right now.

But it will get better.

Take a look at early technology being developed specifically for aggregating mp3 and other enclosures and tying into, say, Windows Media player. I have had the personal experience of providing input and being involved in making suggestions for Doppler, a program that is 100% focused on doing just that.

Adam points out that there is no all-in-one solution for the podcaster. We are far from having that available.

Which means by next week someone will have written it.

Every now and then I am given a tangible reminder of why I decided to live way out in the sticks. Coffee on the front porch and a decent digital camera make it all worthwhile, even at 7:00 on a Saturday morning. Oregon's a great place to live.

Not much has been said recently in the news about Mt. St. Helens and the fact that it's still active and spewing some steam and ash. The alert level for volcanic unrest, as they call it, remains at Orange. Earlier today USGS photographers took some pictures from the air of a steam and ash eruption (it's actually been ongoing for almost a month now). A new lava dome has formed, and continues to be active and grow.

From the USGS: “Seismicity remains at a low level compared to that observed early in this unrest. The current seismicity is consistent with a continuing, slow rise of magma driving uplift of the crater floor and feeding a surface extrusion of lava. The overall low rates of seismicity and gas emission suggest that the lava reaching the surface is gas poor, thereby reducing the probability of highly explosive eruptions in the near term.”

These images are from November 4th. Click the images to go to the official web site, where more pictures and info can be found. Note the ash stains on the snow in both images. You might also be interested in the "repeat views" image gallery, which contains same-angle images over time, so you can see the progression of change.

Just ran across this cool online tool. At chami.com there is a favicon.ico generator for your web sites that will let you generate a FavIcon from any image. It works great:

http://www.chami.com/html-kit/services/favicon/

If you want to create an icon to associate with your web site in the address bar, shortcuts, favorites, etc... this is for you.

Turns out I'm going to have to skip BloggerCon this weekend, and so I just canceled my spot so someone else can have it. It's too bad, and was a tough decision - I signed up when it was first announced - but I'll just use the airline credit for something else over the holidays I am sure. It's just been a little too much all at once in terms of travel (I've been out of town recently much more than in), and I need to take care of business at home instead.

I'll listen to the MP3s after the fact, and the webcasts if they're available. I regret I won't be there to converse and say hi to friends, though.

Next year.

Finally some action and results in the spam war.

A jury in Leesburg, Virginia has convicted Jeremy Jaynes and his sister of scamming millions of dollars via SPAM email schemes.

The jury has recommended Jaynes spend 9 years in prison.

Hey Jeremy... You've got mail male. Congratulations.

You jerk.

Worth reading (as always):

Charlie has written a rather funny story over at the Indoor Camping blog. Usually it's Jill who's the author of the blog, and her prose is always hilarious (hence she's permanently linked in the side bar here), but her husband Charlie gets today's words in:

"From then on, I was on a quest.  I sat there and looked at every woman who came in the store.  Specifically, I watched their butts.  I stared at all the mid-thirties Mom butts shopping and walking.  The clerk was right.  I’m so used to my own wife’s butt that everyone else’s looked huge.  They were well-dressed but their butts were way out of whack."

Hahahah... Cool man. I love blogs, and especially this one. So go read.

We've pretty much all seen how the states stacked up in the presidential election, but have you seen what it looks like when you display the votes county-by-county?

Images are taken from USA Today online. Click each one for the latest info.

By State:

By County:

I have had the privilege of helping test Doppler, a Windows program that allows podcast aggregation as well as windows media aggregation (audio or video). Good stuff. If you have not checked it out and you're a podcast consumer, you need to go get it now. And there's even more features to come soon!

People who read this blog regularly probably know I use FeedDemon, a terrific software creation of the infamous and very cool Nick Bradbury, as my RSS aggregator. I was excited to see that Nick is programming RSS enclosure support into FeedDemon - Awesome! Hey Nick - linky linky????

I guess I should make those who know me from outside the office aware that I have accepted a new job where I work, since much of what I write here is related - albeit somewhat indirectly - to my job. That, and many readers of this blog tell me they keep an eye on this site because of my professional work and experience in that regard.

Note: Just a quick reminder that this blog represents my own personal thoughts, positions and beliefs alone. Nothing I say here is in any way associated with my employer.

Up until last week, I was the Corporate IT Director at a terrific software company in the Portland Oregon area, managing the team of people that makes all the IT systems the company relies upon work. The team there does a lot of work: They handle all company desktops and laptops, software, help desk and end user support, phones, servers, enterprise apps, intranet and Internet web sites, corporate web and software app development, networks, lab environments, infrastructure, network security, and a bunch of other aspects of IT at the company. I have had the pleasure to work with a talented and great group of people in that department, and am proud of all the employees there and the work they have done and will continue to do. One real sign of success as a manager is when you get to the point where you have one or more employees who are ready, able and even hungry to take your job away from you. I was privileged to be in that position as a manager with my employees, and as a result I am confident the department will continue to grow and serve the company well.

So what now? I have made the move to a new position at the same company as Director of IT and Security Operations. That means I will be focusing on working with a team that does amazing security work at Corillian, while continuing to work with the IT department in a higher-level guidance and strategic planning role.

It's a natural and positive move for me (I have been heavily involved in many aspects of security operations and planning over the past few years) and an opportunity to continue to learn and grow in a red-hot and quickly-expanding area. It also means I can maintain somewhat of an IT-planning focus and continue to stay on top of new and unusual software and technology. It's a challenge that looks exciting to me, and for which I am quite motivated.

And it means a slight change of pace, which will be nice. I've worked at the same company for five years, and a little change here and there is a good and healthy thing.

It also means this blog will likely take on an even stronger security slant and emphasis, but I intend to continue to cover IT and technology in general. In fact, it's hard to divorce the two from each other and truly stay in touch with goings on.

And besides, when it comes down to it, I'm really just a technology and gadget geek.

I'm chatting with a friend on IM as the numbers flow in. We're teaming up and splitting duties between news sources, and sending each other info on MSN Instant Messenger. I copied and pasted numbers from a web page into the MSN IM program:

And here is what was sent/converted by the IM client when I cut-and-pasted the text:

Interesting that MSN IM thinks Bush is the gay one, Kerry is a drunk, and Nader has the bright ideas. And it must be true - I saw it on the Internet!

Or maybe I'm missing something?

I am taking some time off from the "well it looks like we won't get to go home on time after all" news-pundit crowd by watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart election night coverage on Comedy Central. Much has been said recently about the "fake news" show. It's hilarious.

Great references to Tron and any number of other hilarious things. Rob Corddry exit polling aliens in Halo. And the interviews are classic. The best part is these interviews are not set up - their real, just off the wall in the question department.

The looks on the faces of the interviewees are priceless... And Rob even gets them to lick voting booth curtains after speaking to a scientist about what's likely to be found on those curtains when so many people use the booths.

Question by Rob Corddry: "Is it possible that I got genital warts while voting?"

Scientist's answer: "The probability is near zero."

This is so much better than the real news.

Will it be the same thing all over again, only exactly the opposite? If Zogby's exit polls hold true (always use caution with exit polls, as we learned 4 years ago), Kerry wins the election, and Bush wins the popular vote. Now that would be ironic. It would be interesting to see what impact that would have on the pre-election polls done by Time Magazine that showed the majority of Americans are in favor of abolishing the electoral college. Do you think that opinion would change, as well?

CAUTION: Early 2000 exit polls showed Gore +3 in Florida [and we know what happened there]; showed Gore-Bush even in CO [Bush won by 9], 2000 exits showed Gore +4 in AZ [Bush won by 6]

Zogby International's 2004 Predictions
(as of Nov. 2, 2004 5:00pm)

Zogby International Finds: Bush at 49.4%, Kerry at 49.1%

The nationwide telephone poll of 955 likely voters was conducted (November 1-2, 2004). The MOE is +/- 3.2